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 •
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• www.wfdf.org
Latest WFDF Communiques
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.
23 January 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), the international sports federation recognized by the IOC that is responsible for world governance of flying disc (frisbee) sports, is seeking one or two individuals to serve as an Event Coordinator (50%) and Administrative Coordinator (50%) to support the growth of our expanding organization. The positions contemplate a part-time (50%) consultancy opportunity for each position, although an individual with the right qualifications could be considered for both areas in a full-time consultancy position. The positions are virtual and so the applicant would need to demonstrate access to the office equipment required to perform the job.
20 January 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation Board (WFDF) Executive Committee, Board members, Committee and Commission Chairs, Continental Representatives and staff come together for two and a half days of strategic discussions that will set the tone for Flying Disc for years to come.
“We are thrilled to have the opportunity to bring together a team of twenty WFDF board and key staffers for intense and productive discussions in New York City at our board meeting and strategic planning session this weekend,” stated WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch. “The WFDF board and staff are located across 12 different countries across global time zones and getting together primarily occurs during our monthly board meetings via a conference call. The 30 hours of meeting time this weekend significantly increases the productivity of discussions, reduces time in making decisions, and improves the work input, while building on the strength and comradeship of the WFDF key heads, making this meeting very important. ”
WFDF’s mission statement “to support and promote the global advancement of disc sports and spirit of the game” will be top of mind in all discussions as the group takes direct input and feedback from key representatives from multiple continents representing all the different Flying Disc Sports: Ultimate, Beach Ultimate, Disc Golf, Freestyle, Guts and Individual Overall Sports. 16 January 2019 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF), in cooperation with the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA), is releasing the second edition of the world rankings for disc golf by country. USA remain the top ranked team in the world, followed by Canada, Finland, New Zealand and Estonia.The criteria for ranking countries are a combination of performance at WFDF World Team Disc Golf Championships and the PDGA ratings for top male and female players.
“The second edition of the WFDF World Disc Golf Rankings marks another significant step forward for WFDF members and countries affiliated with PDGA,” said Charlie Mead, the WFDF Disc Golf Committee chair.“As the criteria for ranking becomes known to the wider disc golf-playing world, National Associations are focusing their attention on how to move up the list. The inclusion of more women and juniors in the calculations for some countries has made a positive difference to their position.”
09 January 2019 - Official Communication
WFDF President Rauch re-elected
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has announced the results of its 2018 elections. This comes after the international federation recognized by the IOC for Flying Disc sports had executed a major revamp of its governance structure and Board composition that had been unanimously approved by the WFDF membership in the autumn of 2018. Among other positions, the membership re-elected Robert “Nob“ Rauch as President for an additional two-year term.
(Please read the full Release including biographies here)
“WFDF is excited about the revisions to our governance structure with the expansion of the Board of Directors, bringing in the heads of our Continental associations and formalizing several other ex-officio positions. We are also extremely pleased to have increased the number of women on the Board to seven out of the eighteen members as we continue to pursue gender equality in our goverenance structure as well as in our competitive events,”commented WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch.
29 December 2018 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) is pleased to announce that it has launched its new wfdf.sport domain name and related portfolio under the “.sport” domain name program initiated and managed by the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) to which WFDF belongs as a member.
“In today´s internet world of so many domain names and extensions, WFDF´s use of the wfdf.sport domain will provide much greater visibility and searchability for the Flying Disc community names. Using the strict criteria applied by GAISF enhances the legitimacy and credibility of Flying Disc‘s public communications and makes us a member of the exclusive ‘.sport‘ community,” commented WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch.
18 December 2018 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (“WFDF”) is pleased to announce that its Congress has approved the Flying Disc Associations of Kazakhstan, Malta, Sri Lanka, and U.S. Virgin Islands as its newest Member associations, increasing WFDF’s membership to 84 national member associations.
“WFDF is proud to welcome the four new member associations to the WFDF flying disc family concluding the latest admission process overseen by our Executive Director Volker Bernardi,” commented WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch.
14 December 2018 - Official Communication
The World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) has approved VC Ultimate as the WFDF Official Apparel Supplier and Partner for 2019-2022. VC Ultimate, based in Toronto, Canada, receives the exclusive opportunity to develop and sell selected official event merchandise and apparel for the WFDF Ultimate Championship events for the four-year term.In return, this partnership will provide benefits to the players and teams, event organizers and to WFDF. VC Ultimate will also continue to work with WFDF to develop and market WFDF-branded gear to be sold through their Canadian, American and European online stores.
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