Over the years there have been various companies that tried to compete with Discraft. Daredevil discs is one of them. They are "UPA approved" but I have no idea how successful they have been. I think that for most Ultimate players, if the price is almost the same and the disc is almost the same, they will still stick to Discraft. I know I do.

But what if the price drops significantly?

This might be a good option for poorer countries, players, or organizers who don't want to risk a large investment.

Now there is a alternative.

YiKunSports (www.yikunsports.com) has a new Ultimate disc made in China. I had the opportunity to test their new version last week (hot from the press) and I must say I was impressed. I didn't notice a difference with the Discraft disc. It was stable, same hardness/softness, and all-in-all a good disc.

Not extremely cheap, but still $2-3 per disc cheaper than Discraft (pricelist). Something to consider...

Every year BULA plants Beach Ultimate seeds around the world to help the sport grow. It does so by organizing one special Beach Ultimate tournament per year in an area that has potential.

This year the Beach Ultimate Traveling Tournament (BUTT) is going to Turkey 30 July - 1 Aug. The tournament will be held on the beach of Kemer (close to Anatlya). The organizers had already submitted a great bid to host the World Championships of Beach Ultimate in 2011 and although they couldn't beat the amazing bid from Lignano the BULA organization was extremely impressed with their bid and gladly awarded the BUTT to Turkey this year.

Here is the website will all the info: www.ffestival.org

I am planning to go and so is the President of the WFDF: Jonathan Potts. I hope to see you there too! :-)

Clearly a lot of work has gone into a new WFDF website dedicated to the rules of Ultimate. With hyperlinks that show the difference with UPA rules, official interpretations, scenarios, quizzes, videos, and lot of other goodies. It is truly an amazing website.

I am not easily impressed but this is a site for everyone that plays Ultimate: www.wfdf.org/rules_ultimate/

Swedish Ultimate is a strange bird. They used to be a power house in the '80s and '90s, always finishing in the top 3 at the World Championships. However this seemed to have subsided somewhat in the last 10 years. Unlike many other European countries their players don't travel much to other tournaments and you rarely hear about them internationally.

But that is not to say that Swedish (Beach) Ultimate is dead. There are still enough players and tournaments and now they are organizing an international beach hat tournament 21-22 August in Halmstad: the Bull's Fat Hat (www.frisbee.se/beachhat or on Facebook).

Is this the start of the revival of Swedish Ultimate? I hope so. I liked seeing their yellow and blue outfits on the field.

Swedish National Beach Ultimate Team at the World Championships in 2004

Paganello is long gone. The weather is getting nicer but the memories are still there. There are of course tonnes of Facebook pages with pictures but none of them have as many great shots as Uncle Botto's:

• picasaweb.google.com/bottto/Paganello2010ASides


• picasaweb.google.com/bottto/Paganello2010BSides

Jonathan Potts, the President of the World Flying Disc Federation, was at the SportAccord (former GAISF) convention this past week and brought back some news about the World Beach Games.

This event will be run along similar lines to the upcoming World Combat Games in Beijing. At World Combat Games all flights, accommodation and meals for athletes are paid for by the games. If they can manage the same sort of deal for World Beach Games it will be a world first for ultimate!

You can also bet that there will be significant broadcast opportunities, so if Beach Ultimate we were to be included, we would probably use the World Beach Ultimate Championships 2011, which are to be held in Italy, as a qualifying event.

SportAccord is tentatively aiming at late 2012/early 2013 for the inaugural event, and already have had informal interest from a number of cities. They plan to have a host in place as soon as possible, maybe by the end of this year.

Unfortunately, SportAccord didn't have the information it required to evaluate Beach Ultimate and it hasn't been included in the list of initial sports for the first World Beach Games.

However, Jonathan had very positive discussions with SportAccord staff and thinks if we put together a strong proposal for Beach Ultimate's inclusion we will have a good chance.

So that is what we will be working on this week :-)

This is great news for Beach Ultimate!

France has taken 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate to the next level: the French 4-on-4 Cup (Coupe de France). Way to go! See the pictures

Notice the great use of the free BULA posters we have available for download in 5 languages :-)