The first Dubai Beach Ultimate tournament turned out to be a success! They ended up with some sponsorship from Pizza Hut and Gatorade. Everyone loved it. Lots of requests to do it again.
Not only was the tournament a great success but a reporter from one of the two big paper covered the event. http://www.thenational.ae/news/uae-news/ultimate-work-out-at-dubai-frisbee-tournament. This story actually resulted in some new players, and also one of the biggest talk radio stations in Dubai spotted the article too and did a live radio interview on Sunday morning.
Here is a picture (I love the camel in the background! 🙂
And the finals:
Author: patrick
Beach Ultimate in Russian Winter
Here is another way to survive the long, cold winter: indoor Beach Ultimate in St.Petersburg (the Oasis tournament)
What we are building….
Here is a visualization of the location of the World Championships…
Beach Ultimate in Dubai
About six months ago, I became aware of a group of Ultimate players in Dubai (United Arab Emirates). They have been growing slowly but steadily in numbers and on Friday April 1 (no joke) they will hold their inaugural Beach Ultimate tournament!
For more information: http://dubaiupa.com/?page_id=711
They are also preparing to send a team to the World Championships of Beach Ultimate! I can’t wait. Here are some scenes from the group playing in the sweltering heat on the beach.
BULA Japan – Shaken, not stirred
For many years BULA has be represented in Japan by Matt Kass. Of course when the quake struck on Saturday we were all worried. Fortunately we received word from Matt saying that he and his family are okay. He wrote:
Despite the grim news, Japan and Japanese people can be remarkably industrious and resilient. I maintain faith Japan can and will bounce back. The assistance from abroad has been amazing, inspiring and truly brings humans together. Thank you and praises to all!
We continue to wish Matt and all people and players in Japan all the best.
Matt at the Dream Cup 2010. This tournament was scheduled for this weekend.
World Championship Update
Just a quick update on the WCBU: It is going fast… 🙂
Lots of countries already signed up. Fifteen Mixed, twelve countries in Open, eight in Women, and nine in Masters. Plus still potential to get the Grandmasters and Mixed masters filled up with 6 countries per division.
Many more countries are getting close to signing up too. Most of the power houses have signed up. We are still missing countries such as France, Brazil, Japan, Italy, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Hungary, Denmark, South Africa, Latvia, Mexico, Colombia, and Venezuela but they are all working on it.
Furthermore some new countries such as Uganda and United Arab Emirates are trying to get enough players and might really be present. That would be sweet!
We are working with Ultimate Peace to get some players from the Middle east: Arab Israelis, Palestinians from the West Bank, and Jewish Israelis.
In the meantime on the sponsorship side things are moving forward well. Discraft and Flashflight were the first two to sign up. Plus we have lots of other good conversations, broadcast interest, and much more.
On the ground things the local organizing committee is doing a great job getting the city of Lignano involved and getting the best deals for the players.
It is lots of work but we feel the excitement building and that makes us all very excited!
Can’t wait to see you on the beach!
NoTsuOh Documentary ready for preview
The No TsuOh documentary that we wrote about last October is ready to preview on: www.greatestultimate.com.
This is the version before the title edits and the audio balancing. The hope is that they get the film viewed more than 10,000 times before April 4th and that more than a third will choose to donate a minimum of a $1. The funds will be used to complete the film and screen the film at as many festivals as possible such as Atlanta Documentary Film Festival, Adventure Film Festival, Amsterdam Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, and more. Enjoy…
Invisible String achieves goal of $25K
Yesterday, on Valentines Day, the feature length Frisbee documentary the Invisible string achieved its goal of raising $25,000!
That is great. Not only did they get the money needed for such an important movie, it took them less than 2 months to raise this money! Sites like Kickstarter.com and Fundrazr.com allow people to easily donate to causes that are dear to them. No longer are there large fundraising events where people try to get millions of dollars/euros. Now a movie can raise $25K or, in the case the Portuguese Beach Ultimate team, just try to raise 3,600 euros to help players go to the World Championships of Beach Ultimate.
One interesting fact about the Invisible String fundraiser. More people donated $100 than the combined number of people donating $10 and $25. Clearly people give with the heart.
World Championship site now in Spanish
The World Championships website is now available in the Spanish language. Thank you Natalie!
www.wcbu2011.org/index.php/es
History of the Spirit of the Game and Observers
An important and interesting piece of information has been made available on the WFDF website: “History of the Spirit of the Game and Observers“. The document is must read for anyone that wants to talking about Spirit and/or Observers. It starts in 1978 when Roddick wrote:
“Highly competitive play is encouraged but never at the expense of the bond of mutual respect between players or the basic joy of play. Protection of these vital elements eliminates some behavior from the ultimate field. Such actions as taunting of opposition players, dangerous aggression, intentional fouling or other ‘win at all costs’ behavior are fouls against the Spirit of the Game and should be discouraged by all players.“
The text is an 8-page collection of chapters and paragraphs from “Ultimate–The First Four Decades” by Tony Leonardo.
Good stuff!