African Beach Ultimate on a rise: Mozambique's first tourney!
African Beach Ultimate is still in its infancy. South Africa is by far the most developed in this region. With the help of the Lifeskills organization and the Kaiser Foundation thousands of kids are starting to play (Beach) Ultimate. The rest of the continent is still almost untouched.
There is some Ultimate in Egypt, helped by Russians that host the Ultimutation tournament in Dahab, and there is some Ultimate in Morocco. However new on the horizon is Mozambique! Led by well known Dutch Ultimate veteran Stef Steven, the man who started the development of Ultimate in Vietnam, there is now a Beach Ultimate tournament on the island of Xefina just off the coast of Maputo.
Chapeau na Ilha da Xefina (translation: Hat on Xafina island) is the name of the tournament and it will take place 14-15 June. It will be beach disc like you've never experienced it before. Local fishermen will give players dhow rides to and from the island with a sundowner included. Caipirinha served in the boats. It should be just an amazing experience.
Party and play like Mozambicans. You know you want to! :-) Contact Sjoerd Brouwer, sjoerd_brouwer@hotmal.com for more information. I am sure they would love to get a couple of foreigners to visit.
Steve and Tom have packed their bags, got theirlaptops primed for high speed editing, and are taking Blockstack.tv to Rimini Italy for Paganello.
They have exclusive backstage access to all the Paga action, interviews with the big names, and with Ultimate loving people having a good time. Most importantly they'll be bringing back a flavour of one of the world's most famous and exciting Ultimate tournaments.
Part 1 of Blockstack.tv in Paganello should be live late Friday night or early Saturday morning.
I suppose it shouldn't have been a total surprise the way the Boracay Dragons A (so-named for the dragon boat races on the island -- a few of the players are dragon rowers) dominated the finals, winning, in effect, 16-5 over Manila's league champion Sexual Chocolate. 16 points because the last goal was an end-zone to end-zone huck which, like Wildwood or those Florida tournaments, is worth 2 points.
The Dragons were fast, deep (roster of 17 i believe) and basically played smart. Their D caused SexChoc to make throwaways which the Dragons converted with efficiency. Game started out 4-0 or 5-0 and was never in doubt.
In semis, Dragons A (White) beat Dragons C (Blue/Yellow), while Dragons B (Silver) lost to Sex Choc 10-9 when the game ended on a one-pointer when the team needed a two-pointer to tie and prolong the game (alas, thrown by me)
In the Important Prizes at the crazy beach after-party, the Manila-based team called Dragon Katol, so named for the local spiral mosquito repellent incense, won the Spirit of the Game, the Party Award and one of their regular player Christian (who played with Boracay Dragons here and was MVP of WBUC in Brazil) won the MVP making it some sort of weird Katol sweep.
Party Details: this tournament was sponsored by a Filipino energy drink, 100 Plus, a number of fine establishments on the beach like the Hey Jude bar, Summer Place bar and grill and Smoke Restaurant, to name a few. Also a TV network/channel sponsored prizes for Spirit/Party and "Top 4 Players" awards which included a compass from the TV show "Lost." Evidently Lost is coming on air here soon.
But the number one sponsor in terms of ubiquitousness was Colt 45, "America's leading premium strong beer." However, we don't have "strong beer" in America, only the more apt designation "malt liquor" a category which Colt 45 probably created too, heck.
Colt 45 is a great and wonderful brew for smashing one's head to mulch for the following day. But it was free.
The finals were pretty colorful: the usual loudspeaker setup, lots of local fans clapping and cheering, all of the teams here, tons of cameras with nice lenses, a TV station was here to do a segment on the tournament and the team (airing March 29th in Manila I was told -- a sports show, nonetheless)
Once again the talk of the day from the Dragons was about how excited they were to bring their game to other tournaments around the world and how psyched they would be to host more traveling players and teams to this tournament. In fact, it appeared that besides a small Singapore team with none of the players from Freakshow, the only travelers here were Jane and I, Izzy and Pierre the French-Canadian handlebar-mustache brothers and two blokes from Regina, Saskatchewan. Truly that will change in the future because it is pretty good times here with lots of free food, free beer, tournament shirt and disc included, parties every night and good competition.
I'm trying to get some pictures up but otherwise go to the official tourney photographers websites:
http://ssshortzzz.multiply.com (not up yet)
http://ogong.multiply.com (not up yet)
Saturday pool play was divided into two pools, an upper and a lower. The upper pool was six teams. Boracay, a, b, and c, manilla's alabang, dragan kutong (insect repellenent for dragons), and sexual chocolate, also from manilla. The closest and best game of the day was sexual chocolate v. boracay silver (b). With two and three goal leads throughout, silver coudlnt finish it al the end and manilla escaped with a universe-point win at the end.
Boracay white (a) crushed sexual choc. two games later to take command of the pool and of the tournament. Tomorrow the semi-finals will likely be a rematch of sex. choc. and bora silver, while bora white should play bora blue (c, aka the young fast kids).
Truly the young kids here in Boracay have a bright future ahead. They are really receptive to the game and start pretty young -- the 12-year olds were forehand hucking like champions. The deal is: Boracay takes ultimate seriously. They really have a good vibe for the fast action of beach ultimate.
Manila and PUA (Philippines Ultimate Association) also are very psyched with Ultimate here -- several celebrities (Rima and Derrick) in Manila, known as TV and Radio hosts (seriously, random locals passing by the frisbee scene stopped and HAD to get a picture with Derrick on Friday night, and everytime he held up a disc in the pic -- which is pretty rad if you think about it.)
Team Alabang Anonymous is know here for the good times, team Dragon Katon for also making things merry and who can forget the travelers, like Pierre and Israel from... Quebec. Viva Francais.
So you can be rest assured that we are drunk now because the saturday night food and party was swell and now we must get ready to play tomorrow
The sand here is quite nice, the beach is fantastic and the teams here feel a bit like they are in paradise.
The international presence is not felt, however. With an always crowded ultimate schedule a lot of Asian ultimate players are saving up their money for Korea or Bali, or still paying for Bangkok Hat and Vietnam Hat.
But the Dragons are psyched to get some love thrown their way and would absolutely love it for more teams and more players to come this way and make this tournament a prime destination tourney. There's no reason why this can't happen: the beach village and the beach itself here are definitely top-notch, the parties promise to be swell and in high style and generally speaking, it's all good.
One drawback simply appears to be that the width of the beach from shorefront property to the sea is shrinking. Therefore, only 4-on-4 action (which i can totally dig coming from Wildwood) and not quite enough for a ton of fields or for 5-on-5. they are working on solutions.
But really it's pretty nice here. The Dragons want to continue their international push after the WBUC in Brazil by going to Paga next year and maybe Oz or the States in the future if they can afford it. But meanwhile they're hoping some kickass teams come this way to so the competition can continue to be amped up
OK, here's some news from Boracay straight off the bat.
FIRST, the tournament this year is being held about 2 months earlier than normal. The local Filipinos, many of whom play in this tournament, are still in their "work" season and thus attending this tournament is difficult. As a result the tournament is not massively large -- perhaps only 14 teams.
But on the flipside there is some serious beach love here. The Dragons (teams A, B and C) practice ultimate just about any day of the week. Tomorrow the teams gear up for some beach conditioning at 9am. Tomorrow being Friday of course... games are not until Saturday.
Not a lot of traveling disc players have made it to Boracay this year. It is not the easiest tournament to get to, but not the most difficult either. And this place really is a swell beach scene.
The other talk of the scene here is that this weekend may be WINDY which apparently is not common for this tournament, as, again, it is usually help in late April or May.
The teams to beat are the stacked Manila big boys Sexual chocolate and the speed demons of Boracay Dragons (A). Last year Dragons won by 2 in the final.
If football is the "beautiful" game then Beach Ultimate is well on the way to being known as the "social" game.
The competitors at the sixth annual Ocean Beach "Beach Hat" tournament came from all over the country as well as from overseas, but once they were put into teams, friendships blossomed that should last a lot longer than the two-day tournament.
The beauty of this tournament, apart from its setting on Ocean Beach, is the fact that no team rivalry exists other than during the game. Each team is picked at random at the beginning of the tournament, meaning teammates have to get to know each other pretty quickly.
What better way to start off the new year than to come out to Southern California and play a weekend full of 5 v 5 beach fun? Lei-out grows every year and this year they have expanded it from 2 days to 3 days (Jan 19-21).
Here are some of the key details:
Three day tourney right at the Santa Monica pier. Enjoy the sun and the ocean while you play.
Raging Tournament Party
Hotel discounts and local restaurant discounts for you and your team
No roster cap for your team so you and all your buddies can come and play for only $30 per person.
No UPA fees
Of course there will be the normal Frisbee morning cuisine of bagels, fruit, an initial supply of water and some other yummies.
Beach Ultimate in San Francisco has long been in the shadow of its grass cousin. During the summer, when the grass league is in full swing, there are just enough players to play on one field on Ocean Beach (for those of you interested, it is on Saturday's at2 PM at stairwell 9). There are no tournaments in the area and there is no beach league.
However persistent work from Edmundo and Chris McT is starting to change this. More and more players are showing up on Saturdays and now Ed is organizing a Beach Ultimate tournament close by: Gazos Gambit November 30 - December 2. There is also some talk about a beach league... It is still just talk, but San Francisco has the players, has the beach, and has the funkiness to have a great Beach Ultimate league. BULA is rooting for it! :-)
The 2007 Against the Grain Beach Ultimate video will be ready in 2 weeks. Order your copy from the TD, Stacy Hubbard [daisyhubbs@gmail.com]. Only $20 :-)
(Austrian article about their Mixed team in Graz this summer)
"Bereits zum 4. Mal veranstaltet der Frisbeeverein Catchup Graz das international besetzte Beach-Frisbeeturnier im Eggenberger Bad.
Heuer werden 12 Teams aus 3 Nationen erwartet, darunter auch das Österreichische Mixed Nationalteam, das Österreich im Dezember auf den Beach Weltmeisterschaften in Brasilien verteten wird.
Zusätzlich starten mit dem Österreichischen Masters-Nationalteam die amtierenden Beach-Ultimate-Weltmeister (Portugal 2004).
At the Bar do Peixe tournament in Portugal last June, all 10 teams made a post-game cheer. All cheers were captured on video, subtitles were added and put online: http://bug-p.org/memories/2007/cheers.html
This winter in Dahab, a city in Sinai, Egypt, the first Ultimutation – BULA beach ultimate hat co-ed tournament took place. If you missed it, no worries: next year they will be back :-)
Ultimutation was organized by Russian beach ultimate lovers who couldn’t wait for the sun in Russia. Around 60 players from all around the world joined the tournament. Two days of 4 on 4 games, party with belly dancing, party in Sinai Mountain, warm Red sea, cheep and cozy restaurants with nice food with real Egyptian sheesha (water pipe) and real summer sun on the middle of winter.
"It's been two weeks since the tournament is over... My face, still tanned, hiding under the hood and winter cap, looks strange in cold and grey streets of St. Petersburg.
In my previous article "Open Truth" I shared my views on Ultimutation as I saw it before the tournament, now I'll try to describe what we got in the end. I won't be surprised if your point of view differs from mine, so you're welcome with your stories, impressions and suggestions..." more
So this past weekend was the annual Ocean Beach Ultimate Hat Tournament. 60 people from around NZ meet at Ocean Beach (which is about 30 minutes from Whangarei) to play two days of Ultimate. All the teams are picked randomly based on ability, sex, and date of registration. On Saturday morning when the teams were named out I stood with my team and looked at all the other ones and was pretty sure I got a bad draw and got put on the worst team in the tournament... (more on Jordan's space)
Since 2002 Dimitry Strelchin and his friends have been organizing the Kiev Hat tournament in the Ukraine. The location is great and look how popular this tournament has become:
On May 5-7th, Anikan (NGO) and Jalisco’s Ultimate Frisbee Asociation organized an Ultimate Frisbee tournament to be played on the beach of San Pancho, Nayarit, Mexico. The purpose of the tournament, asides from throwing the disc around and hanging out, was to raise some funds for some of Anikan’s environmental projects.
Many participants with their friends and families showed up. A total of 36 participants signed up to play: two local frisbee enthusiasts, 14 players from the Guadalajara “Anfibios”, 10 teachers from the American School of Guadalajara, and another 10 players that came all the way from San Luis Potosí (mexican city). The youngest player was only six years old and he actually got to play the final match.
(by Stacy Hubbard)
The fourth annual Against the Grain beach tourney in Seaside, Oregon went off without a hitch! We had fantastic weather- with no wind to speak of! We had a very competitive field this year, and I think the teams are getting stronger every year. The beach was packed, and people sure enjoyed swimming between games. The backdrop of the mountains is one of me fave parts of the Seaside beach.
The party was a blast. Thanks to Denial for showing up first to start draining the bar! (I know Matt Bell did his part as well) I think people really enjoyed the open bar AND, Tim Stackpole's DJ abilities. The Elks Lodge was hopping for sure. They love us there! Check this pic out.
We crowned a new champ this year- Congrats go to Sandblasters from Seattle! This team has been all 4 years and has always been a fun addition to the tourney. In the finals they played Portland's Bikini Killers- a perennial contender. It was an exciting final that went the distance. Thanks so much to all my Whor$hack team mates who helped me pull this off. And, thanks to all of you who continue to support beach ultimate in Oregon. Let me know if you have suggestions for how to make the tourney better next year...See you on the sand, Stacy 'Daisy' Hubbard.
Yesterday we were informed that Wildwood, the 100% coed, 4-on-4 Beach Ultimate tournament in New Jersey, has 224 teams registered. Amazing...! This makes it, at least in number of teams, the largest Beach Ultimate tournament in the world. (Does anybody know how Paganello (Italy) compares in number of players?)
Wildwood will have 4 volunteers to collect the score sheets for the BULA Spirit of the Game rating system and will be awarding two teams the award: the SOTG winner in the elite 3/1 division and the winner in the elite 2/2 division (in case you are wondering... the numbers refer to the number of men/women per team).
Hats off to the organizers. This is quite the undertaking! 224 teams...
After all these years of thinking we knew about all Beach Ultimate tournaments around the world, we just found out that in Japan, for the last 6 years, there also has been a Beach Ultimate tournament! The way we found it is because someone posted a video of the Ebashi Cup on YouTube.com. Great! Another country with Beach Ultimate. Let's hope the Asian region will see more Beach Ultimate in the next few years.
Playing with or against the wind is part of the beach ultimate experience. It's like salt on your meal. Just a bit of salt and your meal taste better. But too much salt can make you meal not eatable any more. Last March in Marseille (France), for the "Bulf à l'eau" tournament, we played with a wind of 50-60km/h on Saturday. This strong and cold north wind is called "Mistral". It was hard but still playable (of course every little throwing mistake sent you disc away). But on sunday morning, the organisers eventually had to cancel the tournament because the "Mistral" was blowing at more than 100Km/h.
So, when is the wind too strong for playing beach ultimate ?
Posted by Jose Pires on April 25, 2006 6:51 PM
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Paganello Pleasure Principle
I’m sitting here at work gently reflecting on what a wonderful Easter weekend I’ve just spent playing Beach Ultimate on the beaches of Rimini at the 16th edition of Paganello. My colleagues have politely asked why I seem so happy and sun kissed; whenever I try to explain how amazing Paganello is I fail and the best clue I can provide is the smile which spreads as I replay the memories. If you’ve never been then just for one moment consider the size and spectacle of the thing: 103 teams across 4 divisions (Open, Women, Mixed and for the first time Juniors), playing who knows how many games on 15 beautiful sandy beaches under sunny skies. How good does that sound?!
First up an apology: I had promised that I’d blog daily updates during Paganello. There was so much fun to be had that I quite simply forgot- sorry. I remembered when I bumped in to Patrick van der Valk playing for SeXXXpensive against Catch 22 on pitch 11 in our teams’ final power pool game on Sunday morning. They gave us a fairly good stuffing under the only cloudy skies of the whole weekend. No matter- both teams were already through to the quarters but our loss meant we faced the upcoming Freespeed whilst the SeXXXy boys went on to lose their quarter to the Swedish Stinks. Catch 22 managed to just sneak past the young and quick Freespeed, due in no small part to a defensive mack which a Freespeed player managed to get without getting the D in the sudden death point which decided the game. This brought us to our semi on the beach arena against the impressive No Tsu Oh from Houston, USA. Paganello’s own daily news sheet- The Talking Fish- (which does an ace job of covering multiple games per day) simply described this match as ‘a thing of beauty’. Despite needing a turnover at sudden death, Houston managed to sneak out as 12-11 victors in a hugely entertaining high quality game with only 2 turnovers per team. Special mention should go to the twin broad sword combo of the Simons Hill and Weeks. In the game’s stand-out moment the former threw a big hammer to the latter for a seriously impressive low level layout one handed goal which drew gasps of astonishment from the packed stands. This was your correspondent's first Paga semi but some of our team’s fourth loss at this stage- despite how comfortable we felt playing at this level we are in danger of becoming known as perennial bridesmaids unless we close out the deal by winning the whole thing some time soon. Whilst some of our opponents lost no time in spicing their condolences with this observation ( ;-)), the fickle nature of success at Paga is perhaps best underlined by the fates of last years open finalists : local boys Cota Rica and Collard Greens over from Atlanta, US who despite playing good disc finished in 11th and 9th places respectively.
Rocky from SeXXXpensive was heard to remark that whilst any team that wins Paga must be good they should also be lucky. In fact the overall level of play in all divisions seems to be improving year on year. JuPiter from Russia took Houston to sudden death in early pool play whilst Catch had a very hard game against the relatively lowly placed Salutami (16th). Just walking round between games there was often no need to cherry pick good spectating: witness the Sublime (UK 15th place) - Peyote Power (Belgium 33rd place) game in round one which was a good example of a game between two young teams showing spectacular D and precise long huck offence.
Another thing that struck a few of us whilst wandering along the beach was the wildly differing Paganello experiences of each team. Whilst some of the top teams gunning for glory would truly only let their hair down once they were knocked out (Stinks, Catch) other top teams had a more relaxed approach to their pursuit of sandy success (Scandal, SeXXXpensive, Horned Melons, and Carbomb). One only needed to pop your head in to one of the parties to see that not all the action was beach based. The opening beach party with “volcanic pasta”, copious red wine and stunning fireworks is always a delight with meeting old friends and making new ones a fitting prelude to the next day’s on pitch action. The Friday night party in the big top on the beach featured some truly stunning freestyle routines and some memorable costumes befitting the “National Stereotypes” theme. The Tyrolean lederhosen and Indian Saris were nicely set off against some (un)intentional sunburnt drunken Englishmen ;-) and a solitary Gandhi.
I can’t quite remember which night I got lost walking home from the party but I can recall what great fun watching the finals day was. Ranging across two pitch length 15 deep stands and packed 4 to 5 deep at each end zone, the crowd must have numbered over 2000. An enthusiastic mix of tired Frisbee players and Italians resplendent in their Easter Monday finery were treated to some great Ultimate with spectacular D, precise offence and inexplicable drops (yes even the best players make some howlers). An oompah band warmed the crowd up with some tunes as they wandered among the throngs many of whom were now relaxing with cold beers and fine pizza. The varied styles of Ultimate across the three main finals show that there is more than one way to skin a cat or indeed to win an Ultimate game. Some preferred low risk short games in working the disc to and fro whilst waiting for the chance to make a clinical score. The main style on show was that of deeps working in tandem off the handlers with one player coming short to receive the disk who would then make a long flat pass to a long legged deep running to the zone for a score. This is a spectacular crowd pleaser and was certainly encouraged by the warm conditions with relatively light winds. Another feature that was noticeable was the huge pulls, especially from Houston, which often allowed the defensive players to run up field under the disc and to mark up the handlers before the offensive play really got going.
In the Mixed Final two-time winners Horned Melons sneeked through in sudden death against Paga favourites Huck Finn and celebrated their victory by making a raucous full team bundle on the score catcher. The Womens’ final saw 6 time winners Bliss take on Paga virgins Ayers Frocks, from Australia with a healthy smattering of Brits spicing the Aussie mix. Both teams played some fine disc but to our little section of the crowd it looked as if the Aussie girls wanted the victory that little bit more. Some great D and point blocks from the Bliss girls were not enough to prevent Ayers Frocks from playing some intense Ultimate in pulling off a surprisingly comfortable 13-8 win. Could it be that the pressure of performing to their reputation got to some of the Bliss squad? That may be specualtion but whatever the case due respect should be given to Ayers Frocks for winning on their first attempt. In the Open final No Tsu Oh did not seem to be at their spectacular best in beating the Swedish Stinks who probably felt they were up against it with only 7 fit men and one team mate in plaster prowling the sideline. For a while it looked as if Houston’s big men would run away with the title but Stinks put up brave resistance to avoid their score being doubled. One should not deny Houston the recognition of their 5th Paga victory but maybe the main point to note is that perhaps Swedish Ultimate has finally woken up to the pleasure of playing disc and partying on the beaches of Paganello. At the very least we should expect more strong Swedish and Scandinavian teams in all divisions over the coming years. Perhaps the final word should go to Houston who in thanking Jumpi described Paganello as “the best Ultimate Tournament in the world”. If you’ve not been yet why don’t you find out for yourself whether this is true?
See you on a beach some time and at Paganello next year.
Will
p.s. for comprehensive results and copies of Paganello's very own Talking Fish daily news letter see http://www.paganello.com/ing/content2002.asp?c=261&a=3_1
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.
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!
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
Posted by Ian Cuddihy on March 7, 2006 2:41 PM
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![Photo credit: Louise Dyring Nielsen [www.photoz.dk]](/images/masthead_layout.jpg)
They have exclusive backstage access to all the Paga action, interviews with the big names, and with Ultimate loving people having a good time. Most importantly they'll be bringing back a flavour of one of the world's most famous and exciting Ultimate tournaments.
If football is the "beautiful" game then Beach Ultimate is well on the way to being known as the "social" game.
After all these years of thinking we knew about all Beach Ultimate tournaments around the world, we just found out that in Japan, for the last 6 years, there also has been a Beach Ultimate tournament! The way we found it is because someone posted a video of the 
