WFDF 2016 World Ultimate and Guts Championship Reaches Quarterfinal Stage
23 June 2016
The WFDF 2016 World Ultimate and Guts Championship reached the quarterfinal stage of the event beginning today, with the top seeds in each division of play remaining largely intact.
The preliminary and play-off rounds of the WUGC 2016 are being held at the University College London (UCL) Sports Ground in London Colney. The tournament organizing committee, headed by UK Ultimate CEO Simon Hill and Tournament Director Jon Pugh, set up 27 high-quality grass competition pitches that cover a total area of 143 acres. The opening ceremony was held on Sunday 19 June. The final day's gold medal games will be held on Saturday 25 June at Allianz Park stadium, home of Rugby's reigning Premiership Champions, Saracens RFC.
Read the full Press Release here as pdf.
“It’s been an action-packed week so far,” stated WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch. Despite a number of incredibly close and spirited games, there have been few upsets in the first four days of play and we are heading into the play-off rounds with most of the top seeds intact. Spectators at the stadium or through broadcast should be treated to a great day of Ultimate at the finals on Saturday. As our largest World Championship ever, it has also been exciting to welcome for the first time a number of countries to our premier event.”
Slightly more than 3,000 athletes are participating in the event, representing 115 Ultimate teams from 39 countries. Competition is being held in five divisions: mixed gender (30 teams), men’s (31), women’s (26), men’s masters (17), and women’s masters (11). In addition, there are 8 teams competing in the discipline of Guts Frisbee.
For Ultimate in the mixed division, Canada (seeded 1) will play Colombia (10), Australia (2) takes on Japan (3), USA (4) faces off against Philippines (7), and Great Britain (5) goes up against France (8). In the men’s division, it will be USA (1) vs. Colombia (10), Great Britain (2) vs. Australia (7), Canada (3) vs. Germany (4), and Japan (5) vs. Belgium (8). In the women’s division, Japan (1) will play Australia (5), USA (2) takes on Switzerland (6), Canada (3) faces off against Russia (13), and Colombia (4) goes up against Germany (11). Semi-finals matchups will be held Friday and the finals played on Saturday.
In the masters’ division of Ultimate, play is now at the semi-final level, with the finals to be held Friday. In the men’s masters, Canada (1) will face off against Great Britain (8) and the USA (4) will take on Denmark (5). In the women’s masters, it will be USA (1) vs. Japan (4) and Canada (2) vs. Australia (3).
For Guts, play resumes Friday with a semi-final “play in” round for the fourth and fifth place teams after round robin play, Great Britain and Germany 1. The winner of that game will take on USA1 in the first semi-final game, with Japan vs. USA2 in the other semi-final. The winners of the semi-finals will compete for the gold medal at 1700 BST later in the day.
Over two dozen games have already been livestreamed throughout the week The game streams are available at livestream.com, at wfdf.org/live, the WFDF Facebook page, WFDF’s youtube channel, and the World Games channel. A two hour broadcast will be televised in North America on Saturday 25 June on CBS Sports Network from 1600-1800 EDT.
A total of 39 countries are competing in the 2016 WUGC. These are: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Democratic Republic of Congo, People’s Republic of China, Colombia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Egypt, Spain, Finland, France, Great Britain, Germany, Hong Kong China, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, South Africa, Russian Federation, Singapore, Slovakia, Republic of Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, and USA.
What is Ultimate?
Ultimate is a non-contact, self-refereed team sport played with a flying disc (aka a Frisbee). Two teams of seven players compete on a playing field about the same length as an American football field, but narrower. At each end of the playing field there is an end zone. Each team defends one end zone. They score a goal if one of their players catches the disc in the opposite end zone. The player with the disc is called the thrower. The thrower may not run with the disc. Instead they move the disc by passing to teammates in any direction. The defensive team gets possession of the disc if an offensive team’s throw is not caught by a player of the same team. Then the defensive team becomes the offensive team and can try to score in the opposite end zone. A key element of the game is that there are no referees and players make their own calls on the field, under a code known as “spirit of the game.”
What is Guts Frisbee?
Guts is played by two teams of five players each. The playing field consists of two parallel goal-lines 15 m in length and 14 m apart. The teams stand in line opposite each other. Each team defends a goal- line. The disc is thrown back and forth between the teams. The object is to throw the disc through the line of defending players. The throwing team scores a point when the other team does not catch a correctly thrown disc. The receiving team scores a point when the disc is not thrown correctly. When a correctly thrown disc is caught by the other team, no points are scored. The team that first reaches 21 points wins the game.
About WFDF:
The World Flying Disc Federation (“WFDF”) serves as the international governing body of all flying disc (frisbee) sports. WFDF is made up of the National Associations (“Members”) that govern their respective disc sports in over 65 countries. WFDF is the International Federation recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for Flying Disc sports, a member of the Association of Recognised International Federations (ARISF), a member of SportAccord and the International World Games Association, is recognized as a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) registered corporation in the State of Colorado, USA, and it is a signatory of the World Anti-Doping Agency code. WFDF estimates that over 7.5 million people globally play disc sports competitively.
For more information, please contact:
Volker Bernardi, Executive Director
World Flying Disc Federation
Engasse 2a, D - 55296 Harxheim GERMANY
+49-176-6419-7702 •
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
• www.wfdf.org
Latest WFDF Communiques
19 June 2019 - Official Communication 
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has selected The Greatest Bag as the Official Bag Supplier and Friction Gloves as the Official Glove Supplier for 2019-2020, upon the conclusion of an open tender process.
The Greatest Bag and Friction Gloves will be the exclusive supplier of bags and gloves at WFDF events, including WFDF 2019 World Under-24 Ultimate Championships (WU24) in Germany, WFDF 2020 World Ultimate and Guts Championships in the Netherlands and WFDF 2020 World Masters Ultimate Championships in Australia.
17 June 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is seeking bids for host organizers for the WFDF 2021 and 2023 World Team Disc Golf Championships (“WTDGC”). The WTDGC is the premier Disc Golf event for WFDF and the 2021 and 2023 editions of the event will look to build on the success of past championships held in Colchester, UK and Vancouver, Canada, and the upcoming 2019 event to be hosted by Estonia in August this year. Hosting the WTDGC is a chance to introduce an international sporting event to new communities, draw interest and attention to a host city and country, and generate economic impact for local businesses, while developing the sport globally. Bids are due by Friday 12 July 2019.
07 June 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is pleased to welcome two new additions to its executive staff in order to expand its ability to support the objectives of the organization. Igor Jankovíc has joined WFDF as Administrative Coordinator, reporting to Executive Director Volker Bernardi. Patrick Fourcampré-Maye now serves as Event Coordinator reporting to Karina Woldt, WFDF’s Managing Director, Events and Operations. Both positions are a new part-time paid staff position.
05 June 2019 - Official Communication
WFDF is pleased to announce that the French Federation of Flying Disc (FFFD) was recognized by the Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français (CNOSF), the National Olympic Committee of France. The FFFD membership was accepted during the Annual Congress on 28 May 2019 after a recommendation by the CNOSF Executive Committee.
“The recognition of our French Federation is a key milestone for the development of WFDF. This is great news for the Flying Disc community in France and for all friends of our sport around the globe,” stated Robert “Nob” Rauch, WFDF President. “WFDF has been making consistent progress in terms of National Olympic Committees recognizing our member associations, with FFFD now becoming the 14th WFDF member to be part of their NOC. We are happy to see France, with its competitive flying disc program, be accepted as a member of CNOSF, and we hope that they will get even more young athletes interested in Flying Disc sports."
“The French Federation of Flying Disc is proud of the decision supported by 82% of the French National Olympic Committee (CNOSF) to join the French Olympic movement,” commented Franck Leygues, FFFD President. “Sports politics in France are changing a lot and it was an important milestone for FFFD to get French NOC recognition. This is the achievement of 20 years of work for FFFD, and we cannot discount the boost we got from the efforts of WFDF in their Paris 2024 application. The French Federation continues to support WFDF in its goal to be a part of the Olympic Programme in the future. I would like also to warmly thank WFDF Executive Director Volker Bernardi for his support in our CNOSF application, and we are certain that our experience will be helpful to other WFDF members in getting their national Olympic recognition.“
There are now 14 member associations of WFDF which are recognized by their National Olympic Committees (NOCs), including Chinese Taipei, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Hong Kong China, Hungary, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Sweden, Switzerland and the United States of America. 30 May 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is pleased to announce that its Board of Directors have approved of the Strategic Plan for the period 2019-2024, which will provide a roadmap for the International Federation for the next six years. WFDF will present its plan to its member National Federations at the Congress 2019, which will be held in conjunction with the WFDF 2019 World Team Disc Golf Championships (WTDGC) on 25 August in Alutaguse, Ida-Virumaa, Estonia. The WFDF 2019-2024 Strategic Plan can be found here.
“The WFDF board and officers will be using this strategic plan to guide our decisions over the next four years,” said WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch. “We see it as a document that will help us make explicit decisions about our activities, program investments, and priorities based on strategic considerations within the context of our limited resources. At a stage where the IOC has fully supported the Olympic Agenda 2020 proposals, we feel prepared for the tasks and challenges derived from these decisions.”
28 May 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is seeking volunteers to join a new WFDF Information Technology (IT) Committee to assist the board in evaluating upgrades to its systems over the next two years and oversee the work of a paid systems administration consultant. The Committee will be comprised of volunteers from the disc community and will be chaired by Luke Tobiasiewicz. Interested individuals should submit their applications with a summary of their qualifications and areas of expertise and interest by the 12th of June to luke@teamtg.co.uk.
There are many projects that are being considered to improve the efficiency of the organization, but the following projects have been deemed to be the most pressing. Such projects can include a review and confirmation of current systems, purchase of outside systems, in-house development, development of new procedures, etc
07 May 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation opened the WFDF 2019 European Beach Ultimate Championships, in association with BULA (EBUC 2019), in Portimão, Portugal on Monday, May 6. The premier European event for Beach Ultimate, EBUC 2019 has more than 1,300 athletes from 22 countries competing in more than 400 games over six days.
"WFDF is very excited for this event and, with the development of Beach Ultimate over the past several years, EBUC 2019 will be the largest continental beach tournament in history,” said Karen Cabrera, WFDF’s Beach Ultimate Chair. "The size of the event is a testament to the interest and dedication of players, national member associations, and organizers in this discipline of Flying Disc.
"We look forward to a very successful event in Portugal, and WFDF is already looking forward to the WFDF Asian-Oceanic Beach Ultimate Championships being held in Shirahama, Japan from 13-16 June 2019, our next World Championship of Beach Ultimate in 2021, and our hopeful inclusion in the future ANOC-GAISF World Beach Games in 2021," said Robert "Nob" Rauch, WFDF President.
01 April 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (“WFDF”) is pleased to announce that the Global Association of International Sport Federations (“GAISF”) confirmed that the Flying Disc sport of Freestyle will be on the sports programme of the first edition of the World Urban Games, to be held in Budapest (Hungary) on 13-15 September 2019.
GAISF Director Philippe Gueisbuhler confirmed Freestyle’s place on the competition programme in a letter sent to WFDF Executive Director Volker Bernardi. “We thank you very much for your collaboration and look forward to working together to ensure the first edition of the World Urban Games in Budapest in 2019 is a success,” wrote Gueisbuhler.
27 February 2019 - Official Communication
The Congress of the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has approved of an additional Bylaws revision after concluding the vote by electronic means. The unanimous decision approves two additional modifications of the revised WFDF Bylaws that were approved by Congress during their annual meeting on 13 July 2018. The modifications incorporate the concept of “self-officiation” into the WFDF Bylaws and require Congress approval for any changes of the provision, in order to further clarify and promote Spirit of the Game.The proposals had been submitted jointly by the Swiss and Belgian associations.
“The addition to the purpose of WFDF in Article I, section 2 of the Bylaws to include the principle of ‘self-officiation’ in our Bylaws puts an even stronger emphasis on the Spirit of the Game to which WFDF is committed,” explained WFDF President Robert L. “Nob” Rauch.
21 February 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has received today the official notification by Paris 2024 that Flying Disc was not selected as an additional sport for the 2024 edition of the Olympic Games.
Paris 2024 Sport Director Jean-Philippe Gatien wrote to WFDF President Rauch that “after careful consideration, the Paris 2024 Executive team has reached a final decision” and that Flying Disc “has not been selected to be put forward to the IOC to become a part of the Olympic Games 2024 sports programme.”
The sports of Surfing, Skateboarding, Sport Climbing, and Breaking were selected by Paris 2024 as additional sports to be put forward to the IOC for approval, as was announced at their Press Conference in Paris this morning.
|
Play True!
 |
