Last month the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) released the revised version of the Official Ultimate Rules (link). Today we have made the Beach Ultimate appendices available to all Beach Ultimate Lovers.
These rules will come into effect 1 January 2013 and will apply to all BULA events, including the European Championships of Beach Ultimate (ECBU2013)
From all of us at BULA: Have a beachy 2012!!!
After the World Championships there have been many requests by players to have European Championship of Beach Ultimate (ECBU).
To look into the possibilities, Pedro Vargas from Portugal has been asked to lead BULA Europe for the next two years and assist, educate, and promote the Spirit and the Game of Beach Ultimate in Europe.
Pedro is a player for the Portuguese Mixed Beach Ultimate team that secured the 4th place at the World Championships in Lignano (Italy) this summer. Pedro is also the VP of Development of the recently established Portuguese Flying Disc Federation.
Pedro will talk to potential TD’s about hosting the ECBU in 2013 and lead it from BULA’s perspective. This is another big step for the future of Beach Ultimate and I am excited about it 🙂
Boulder, Colo. (September 29, 2010)–USA Ultimate, the national governing body for the sport of Ultimate in the United States, announced today the creation of a Beach Ultimate division and committee to organize, promote and administer the sport of Beach Ultimate.
Recent passage of a proposal to create an official Beach Ultimate World Championship at the World Congress of the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) called for the identification of a sole entity as the official representative of Beach Ultimate for each country. Upon passage of the proposal, WFDF recognized the current national associations as the governing entities for Beach Ultimate, and encouraged their member organizations to embrace and support this new endeavor.
Dr. Tom Crawford, CEO of USA Ultimate, was present for the proposal and discussion in Prague: “We were very supportive of the proposal for several reasons, including the large number of our current members who play both beach and grass Ultimate. We see this as a great opportunity to help grow the beach side of our sport and create more playing opportunities for new and existing Ultimate athletes. We also knew we had a great existing group to work with, led by David Hammond, that will make this initiative go smoothly for us and our Board. They are the experts and they will lead this effort for USA Ultimate.” More…
Remember it was almost official? Now it is 100% official! The World Flying Disc Federation member poll closed and there were 62 votes in favor, 0 against, and 0 abstained! Beach Ultimate is now an officially recognized disc sport!
This also means that the WFDF and BULA will jointly host the World Championships of Beach Ultimate in Italy 22-28 August 2011. This will be 5-on-5 Beach Ultimate for national teams and countries can compete in 6 divisions:
1. Open
2. Women
3. Mixed
4. Masters (’78 or earlier)
5. Mixed Masters (’78 or earlier)
6. Grandmasters (’71 or earlier)
The location is perfect! It is at a sports complex that has its own beach and can house 2,500 players. Prices are low (40 euros per person per night for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a room with 3 others). All the basic information is at www.wcbu2011.com
Juniors (’92 or later) will have their own World Championships at the same place, a week before: 17-20 August and will compete in:
1. Open
2. Girls
3. Mixed
Spread the news! Share the love.
Last Saturday Matt Kass, Representative Director for BULA Japan, and I were at the the World Ultimate Club Championships in Prague and attended the WFDF Congress to defend BULA’s motion to get Beach Ultimate recognized as an official sport.
This is what happened:
The WFDF had been too late submitting all the motions to its members. According to the WFDF bylaws they needed to do this 60 days before the congress starts. BULA was on time with our motion to the WFDF (75 days before congress starts) but the WFDF was late in sending it out. So, to try to rectify it, the WFDF submitted a motion to Congress to accept the submission of motions that were submitted too late.
The US and Canada had problems with some of the motions and with the fact that the WFDF didn’t follow their own rules. So they decided to publicly show their discontent with the WFDF by voting against the motion to allow the late motions. This meant that we could have gone home almost immediately.
Fortunately Jonathan Potts, the WFDF President, suggested that congress would discuss the motions during the meeting and do a non-binding straw poll to see what the direction of the votes would be. In about a month or two a binding electronic vote will take place and those results count. This idea was accepted, albeit somewhat reluctantly, by the US and Canada.
In total 9 motions were voted on and the Beach Ultimate motion was the only motion that did not have any votes against or abstains. Beach Ultimate as an official sport was “passed” by 26 votes for, 0 against, 0 abstains!
Again, this is not 100% official yet, but the fact that Japan, US, and Canada voted for the decision is a huge win for Beach Ultimate. I honestly don’t see any problems laying ahead of us now. Whooohoooo! 🙂
Next steps will be to organize a hugely successful World Championships of Beach Ultimate in Italy next year and getting Beach Ultimate included in the World Beach Games that will be organized by SportAccord at the end of 2012.
This sport is going somewhere… 🙂
Back in April I wrote that we submitted a motion to the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) to get Beach Ultimate officially recognized as a sport. Now we are close to getting the answer.
On Saturday morning the WFDF will hold its congress in Prague where the World Ultimate Club Championships will be held. Representatives of all the countries will vote on the motion.
I know we have the support of many countries already but there is one possible obstacle: the WFDF was late in submitting the motion to its members. To rectify this they submitted a motion to congress to accept all motions that were submitted late. If that motion is not accepted all our efforts have been for nothing. Let’s hope it doesn’t turn out that way.
I will keep you informed!
Patrick
As the Chairman of the WFDF Spirit of the Game Committee I am very pleased to announce the 2010 Spirit of the Game Scoring system. The Committee looked at all the feedback on the 2008 system and worked hard to make the system better and easier to use. I think we succeeded 🙂
The reduction of the number of scoring criteria from 8 to 5 is one of the main changes. Each team is now scored on: 1) Rules knowledge and use, 2) Fouls and body contact, 3) Fair-mindedness, 4) Positive attitude and self-control, 5) Themselves (did the team play with worse, same, or better Spirit than the other team?)
The other major change in the 2010 Spirit of the Game scoring system is the rating. Each of the criteria are now rated “Excellent”, “Very Good”, “Good”, “Not so Good”, or “Poor”, and teams awarded 4, 3, 2, 1, or 0 points respectively, yielding a score range of 0-20 points per team per game. I believe that this correctly reflects the overall Good Spirit seen in the (Beach) Ultimate community and allows us to maintain this level of Spiritedness worldwide. As of November 8, 2009 have translations of the SOTG scoring sheet in 27 languages(!) and we will continue to add new translations. (download translation template and send it to patrick@beachultimate.org by the end of the year)
We also created an official press release. If you have contact with local or national press people, forward the press release at https://beachultimate.org/New_Fair-Play_scoring_system_released_in_25_languages.pdf. Spirit of the Game is what makes our sport special.
Of course, spread the word in you local (Beach) Ultimate communities as well. Show people the new SOTG scoring sheets or send them to www.wfdf.org/index.php?page=rules/spirit.htm or www.beachultimate.org/blog/2009/10/spirit.html
In any case, here are the 27 languages available until now:
Last weekend the BULA flag, created for the European Championships in France last year, was proudly displayed during the Taj Ultimate tournament in Japan.
And if you like good promotional Ultimate videos, check out the Taj Ultimate homepage video at: www.tajultimate.com
Many years BULA has been working with Matt Kass, a veteran player from the US who lives and works in Tokyo. We met Matt for the first time in Portugal when he was playing for the US Master’s team. His passion and drive for Beach Ultimate was clear and refreshing.
Now, with the arrival of the first Asian Championships Beach Ultimate, Matt has more than ever put his efforts behind helping BULA in Asia, and in Japan in particular. We are very fortunate that Matt has offered to further develop BULA Japan as the Representative Director. There are at least 4 Beach Ultimate tournaments every year and with his help we hope to expand this.
For any questions or inquiries about Beach Ultimate in Japan, Matt can be reached at:
makass@me.com
m: +81-90-9857-7070