Last September saw the seventh edition of the Burla Beach Cup take place on the beach of Viareggio, near Pisa in Italy.

This tournament has been growing in numbers each year, with 82 teams taking part this year in 3 divisions. It’s easy to understand why: you’re guaranteed 3 days of beach ultimate, good weather, perfect beaches, great accommodation and a good party atmosphere all with an Italian style.

Viareggio is becoming like a second Rimini, 14 fields, increasingly high level and, to be fair, some of the disadvantages too! Paul Bernier, Max Vitali and the rest of the hard-working Tuscan team have done a fantastic job of expanding this great tournament, and they have committed to continuing to improve the experience for all comers.

In the open division CUSB Bologna (IT) beat the Rimini finalists SEXXXPENSIVE in a close final. The young Italians were perhaps less tired than the international thong legends and made slightly fewer mistakes with some tight defending. The Bologna junior team also won the third division; perhaps we can expect CUSB to start challenging for the Paganello title in future years? Cota Rica might have something to say about that, although they didn’t make it to Viareggio this time.

A special mention should go to Glasgow Open, who, having made a wrong call that decided a game, realized their mistake overnight and asked for the result to be changed! Spirito del gioco.

Full Results:

OPEN_1 div.
1. CUSB Bologna (IT)
2. SEXXXPENSIVE (Intl)
3. DJI SAM SOE (AT)
4. INEXXXPENSIVE (Intl)
SOTG
1. FREEZZZBEEZZZ (BE)
2. DJI SAM SOE (AT)
3. 4 STAZIONI (DE)
----------------------------------
OPEN_2 div.
1. COBRA KAI (UK)
2. INNERCIRCLE (AT)
3. SKYHAWKS (CH)
4. ULTEAM (NL)
SOTG
1. RADICAL (CH)
2. XLR8RS (BE)
3. SPIN (AT)
Another special award to GO (Glasgow Open)
----------------------------------
OPEN_3 div.
1. CUSB JUNIOR (IT)
2. NO FRILLS ( UK )
3. MYTHAGO ( UK )
4. BASIC ( UK )
8. Best women team: WOODCHICAS (DE)
SOTG
1. LES COLLEGUES (FR)
2. WOODCHICAS (BE)
3. LEAMONGTON LEMMINGS ( UK )

With the Porro Open this weekend in Barcelona it was perfect timing to get coverage about Spanish Beach Ultimate on TV3 from Catalunya.

The 2 minute report last Friday showed that in heavy winds there can still be a game. I wish TV3 would allow for others to embed the video (why not?), but that doesn't seem to be possible so you will have to click here: http://www.tv3.cat/videos/768109

Thanks to Christian, Gemma, Dima, Carlos, Sofia, the Italian Flying Disc Federation, and Eduardo the new WFDF/BULA Spirit of the Game scoring sheets are now available in Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, and Brazilian:

http://beachultimate.org/blog/2008/05/sotg.html

Probably the first time in history: Beach Ultimate highschool intramurals. I wished I lived in Boracay!!! Check this out:

I wish all online communities would merge. It would make them much more valuable to the users. For example, Spinn-City (www.spinn-city.com) has some great features but not enough members (~80) to make it really useful for anyone.

Spinn City Disc Museum
I love this idea. So many discs are made and many have a special meaning to us. Whether it is our first disc to play with, a team disc, a fun tournament disc, or a special occasion disc. We remember our discs. Unfortunately we lose/break discs and when that happens we feel a loss. The disc museum is something that is a great feature on the site, if... more people would add to it.

Personal profile
Spinn City has something I have not seen in any other online disc community: Major sporting Achievements, Major spirit/party Achievements, and Most beautiful Tournaments. I like this feature!

Spinn City has other features such as an event calender and picture uploading, but those you can do better with ffindr and facebook.It is too bad that there is little action on the site and there is no real reason for return visits. Perhaps this will change in the future. If so, I will post it here on our blog again.

Earlier this year I wrote about a new LinkedIn group called Disc(o)Tech. Unfortunately I have not seen any use for/from it. However there is another disc related LinkedIn group that is more active: the Wonderful World of Ultimate. There are currently 181 members and a few days ago a new discussion was started: "Should the Ultimate Frisbee groups on Linked in merge? And how?".

So far only two responses, but give it time... :-)

I love LinkedIn for professional purposes, but is there any value in segregating it into hobby/sport groups? If I want to hang out online with my Beach Ultimate friends I go to Facebook (which I do not open to my professional network ;-). Facebook is great and has lots of Beach Ultimate players using it. Way more than LinkedIn users.

For example: at the 2008 Bar do Peixe Beach Ultimate tournament there were 140 players from 16 countries. Of those players, 27 made an online digital albums (=20%, which is probably a record in the Ultimate world). Of those 27 there were 23 (85%!) that used Facebook! That is amazing.

If you are not on Facebook, you might be missing out. I know there are privacy concerns and personally I don't download all the millions of applications. However it is a great way to keep in touch with your friends that are miles away.

With the 2009 Asian Championships Beach Ultimate in sight, we are discovering more Beach Ultimate in Asia. In Beijing there was even an artificial beach that saw the arrival of many players. Here is an excerpt from a blogger in China:

The sand was artificial and, at places, hurt like hell to land on (more on this later), but it was still a fun day at the beach, even if there was no water. Organized by the inimitable Jeff Orcutt et al., we split into four teams -- names drawn out of a hat -- and played four games each. More...