Hi Beach Ultimate Lovers,

I'm Will Halliday and I'll be bringing you updates from Paganello which is held every Easter on the beaches of Rimini on the Adriatic coast of Italy. As you may know, Paganello is one of the world's greatest Beach Ultimate jamborees. Hopefully we'll see some of you on the beach and at the parties; for those of you unable to be there we'll whet your appetite for Beach Ultimate pleasure by blogging you tales and pictures of sandy glory and action. Your correspondent is playing for Catch 22 so you’ll maybe get news of top Open games and perhaps a flavour of Paganello’s tasty late night party scene. Will the Cota homeboys defend their title against sure-to-be-strong US teams- can Bliss take yet another winners' umbrella and who will come out on top of the strong Mixed division? With luck you’ll get updates from Thursday 13th through to Monday 17th April so check back here if you can’t make Rimini beach the place to spend your Easter weekend. I’m getting excited already.

Will

The seventh annual Lei-Out Beach Ultimate Tournament shattered all previous attendance and competition records during the January 14 and 15 event. Teams turned out from all over the globe to be a part of the festivities even though the weather was a little gloomy, with the first rain ever during a Lei-Out Tournament early Saturday morning.

When the rain subsided Saturday afternoon, fierce competition began. “The pools were really, really hard” stated Alex Korb, captain of Lei-Out Quarterfinalist’s “Brown and Blue.” “There were no easy games- every team came to win” he said. In his pool there was a three-way tie for first place. Very few pools had the top ranked team hold seed and every pool had at least one major upset.

Lei-Out mainstays and Paga champions “Carbomb” were one of the few teams to hold seed throughout the tournament. Although they faced tough competition Saturday during pool play, they were able to muscle their way through the day without a loss. On Sunday, “Carbomb” had an intense battle against “The Steve Dugan Experience” in the semi final round- marginally attaining a victory. “That game had more intensity and fire than I have ever seen in a Semifinals game at Lei-Out” said Aaron Jacobs, long time Lei-Out participant.

On the other side of the bracket, Crazy Go Nuts University (CGNU) upset opponents all the way through the tournament. The team combined precision offense and intense defense, to create sound, fundamental Ultimate execution. CGNU faced off against Lei-Out favorites, the Woodies, in the Semifinals. Although the Woodies brought heart, experience, and determination, the execution of CGNU proved too much for the Bulgarian team.

The tournament featured “Carbomb” and CGNU facing off in a very memorable Lei-Out championship. Both teams possessed impeccable skill and athleticism, but in the end, CGNU reigned victorious and positioned themselves in a very elite group of teams to have been crowned Lei-Out Champions.

While the competition was the focus, the spirit, pageantry and spectacle stole the show. There were 66 teams, over 1000 participants, and hundreds of fans and onlookers. The tournament hosted college teams, club teams, and elite players from all over the country and the world. There was a huge part on the Santa Monica Pier, and all participants were given Lei-Out’s trademark leis.

All in all, the weekend was a smashing success filled with intense competition, partying, and great fun to be had by all.

It will be tough to top Lei-Out 2006…though; a fireworks show might be a good start!

Check out www.leiout.com for results and cool updates

Here are the five oldest Beach Ultimate tournaments in the world:

• 1986: Death on the Beach, Texas (later became TBUF)


• 1988: West Palm Beach, Florida (later became Battle on the Beach)


• 1989: Paganello, Italy (oldest still running tournament)


• 1991: Wildwood, New Jersey


• 1992: Britannia, Ottawa

Cool!

An automated Frisbee throwing machine that gives you consistent throws. The design is interesting as it uses a bicycle wheel to get the traction. I wonder when it will go into mass production.

Link to video

After the hillarious GlaxoSmithKline game, here is another game that you can play when the weather is still not good enough to play Beach Ultimate: Ultimade, the Ultimate board game. A fun strategy game that can be played anywhere.

Link

I don't know what the winter has been like for you, but in London it's been dark, grey and cold. That's probably why I was a bit over-excited last thursday to be boarding a flight with Dom and Sally, bound for blue skies, warm weather and the start of the European Beach Ultimate season, in Las Palmas, Gran Canaria.
I'd never been to this tournament before, so didn't quite know what to expect, but one look at the list of players told me all I needed to know. So many of the "usual suspects" were flying in from all over Europe that a great time was virtually guaranteed. What I didn't know much about was what the local scene was like in the Canary Islands, but I was not to be disappointed!

Arriving on Thursday afternoon, and after setting up camp at the Hotel Cantur, we met up with John Scully and the Irish contingent was complete. We set of with Miquel, Jens, Tim and the gang, and got to the All Blacks Pub for the team draw. The party kept swinging till the early hours. I have vague memories of Cuba Libres, saying hello to lots of people I hadn't seen for a while, and a sore head the next morning. So far so good.

I suppose at some point I should mention playing, well here it is. A round-robin format meant we all got to play one-another, with the top two teams contesting a final on sunday afternoon. The one thing that surprised me the most was the level of play. Considering that the teams from Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, and Tenerife, all have to go island hopping to play each other (not to mention flying hundreds of miles to mainland Europe to play anyone else), the standard of their players was really impressive. In fact one of the Atis Tirma players on my team had 100% stats for the weekend. Dani had no drops, no throw-aways, and managed to score about a third of our points. Plus his band rocked the friday night party! We ended up finishing in fourth place, with 4 wins and 4 losses.
The story of the weekend was how tight the games were. Lots of sudden-death games and on or two surprises on the way, but in the end, and after a great final it was Rue Veitl and his team who were triumphant.

Many thanks must go to Juhv and all of his assistants and helpers who really helped start off the Beach Ultimate year with a bang. Their organisation was fantastic, from the accomodation and to the pitch-side food, drinks and massages. The parties, and especially the band, rocked. Cheers also to everyone who came to the Beach bar on sunday night to wind down after the tourney. To those of you lucky people who are staying on in Tenerife for the tourney next weekend, I am very jealous....

See you all on the beach soon

Ian aka Jazz

Shock Absorber, a UK line of sports-bras, has a Flash-based boobies-physics simulator. Plug in a cup-size and a level of activity, and it produces a 3D animation of breasts of that size bouncing free, bouncing in a regular bra, and hardly moving at all in one of their sports-bras. Extra geeky bonus points for including a 3D wireframe view, so you can see the pure physics of the jiggle. Link