USA Ultimate College Championships !

USA Ultimate College Championships being played right now ! Us Europeans could only dream of a league like this with 12000 (!) players from all across the US of A...

All info can be found at http://www.usaultimate.org/competition/college_division/college_championships/default.aspx

YAKA French Champions (ladies division) 2011 !!

YAKA, (Noisy-Le-Sec) Champions of France in Ladies Division 2011 !! Thumbs up to these girls !

French Championships - Youtube : "Jack'Suns Lose Their Title"

Check out some images from the French outdoor championships where Ultimate Vibration took their 10th title after winning the final against Friselis. Rich is speaking on behalf of the JackSuns who were the French champs in 2009 & 2010 but didn't manage to prolong their title.

For the record : this is the history of  French champs :
1990 Sun
1991 Invalids
1992 Iznogood
1993 Iznogood
1994 Iznogood
1995 Iznogood
1996 Iznogood
1997 Ultimate Vibration
1998 Ultimate Vibration
1999 Ultimate Vibration
2000 Ultimate Vibration
2001 Ultimate Vibration
2002 Ultimate Vibration
2003 Iznogood
2004 Ultimate Vibration
2005 Ultimate Vibration
2006 Iznogood
2007 Iznogood
2008 Ultimate Vibration
2009 Jack'Suns
2010 Jack'Suns
2011 Ultimate Vibration

Picture by Xavier (UV).

Another congratulations to Ultimate Vibration who made a landmark with their 10th title.

Impressive !

Rising High (Delft,NL) - Results

Check out a Dutch report of last weekend's Rising High tourney in Delft where Cambocakes won the Open Division and Gronical Dizziness the ladies division.
Spirit went to both Belgian teams Gentle-ladies and Schijnwerpers !

Here's the link to the report :
http://www.frisbeesport.nl/web/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=799:rising-high-titels-prooi-voor-gd-en-cambocakes&catid=72:ultimate-nieuws&Itemid=326

Ultimate Vibration FRENCH CHAMPIONS 2011 !

ULTIMATE VIBRATION is 2011's champion of France after beating Friselis in a thrilling,exciting final which ended after a universe point scored by Klem from UV in 14-13 !

Congratulations to them !

G-Spot 2011 - Brilliantly Oldskool !

G-Spot 2011 was wicked ! Plan B (aka Belgian National Mixed) took home the gold ! Kloten Van Staal took you back to the oldskool ! Sletset won spirit !

Bigger report coming !

Tourney Report - Disc-Au-Bar

Last weekend FLOW a.k.a. Bollywood Swing Kings (a.k.a. Belgian Open?) won the DISC_AU_BAR tournament in Aalter,BE.

A sunny,chilly weekend filled with good times. Thanks to De Slijpschijven !

Random Video - BEST CATCH EVER ?

Check out this backwards layout ! Might easily be the BEST LAYOUT I've ever seen.
I would love to see someone catch a disc like this !
Also check out the red guy #38 at 0:13". Haha !

Random Picture - Pretty Funny Picture If You Ask Me

All official pics of Tom's Tourney 2011 can be seen at http://www.flickr.com/photos/7939659@N08/collections/72157626648038384/

Tom's Tourney 2011 - Official Pics Online !

The official tourney pictures of Tom's Tourney 2011 are online; great thanks to Myriam (Glenn's wife) !

Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/7939659@N08/collections/72157626648038384/ 

BIG Tourney Report - TOM'S TOURNEY 2011 !!

Note : click on pictures for a bigger view or download.
First off, everybody who's ever been to Tom's Tourney knows this just isn't your average small get together of Ultimate players.

Tom's Tourney has been around for 19 years and has grown to be an extraordinary event where top level European teams battle each other and where so many Ultimate friends meet up with each other and have some great times. It's one of the biggest tourney's in Europe and to so many players this event is one they look out for every year. Bruges is a nice place to visit and Glenn and his Freezzzbeezzz crew put in a lot of effort to make us all as comfortable as possible (in which they surely succeed !).

Last weekend was another edition to remember with loads of sunshine,one big lightning storm,a wicked party,a delicious BBQ,loads of Brugse Zotten,some great ultimate battles and a few big surprises.

In Open Division 1 COBRA KAI from the UK managed to defend their title from last year. Next year we will see if they are up for winning the triple in a row like CUSB La Fotta from Bologna,Italy did in 2007,08&09. For some of us who have been wondering where these fit boys in white and red came from, here's a little explanation by Justin Foord, a very skilled and talented Ultimate player who showed some great moves in the final of TT 2011.

"Our team is a mix of players from Clapham Ultimate and Brighton Ultimate. Although Cobra Kai haven't played in many competitions together, we know each really well from club and university level. Our main aim is go away and have lots of fun and play hard ultimate. We try not to get angry on the pitch with each other as we have seen from other teams how detrimental this can be to team performance. We try to encourage each other and give as much constructive criticism as possible. But, in all, we just want to have fun, enjoy the weather, drink beer from belgium and WIN!!"

The final was played against a team that has a big history at Tom's Tourney : VIBRATION OLD STARS played one hell of an amazing tourney and made it all the way up to the big final. They showed some amazing perseverance and skills against the Cobra Kai boys but finally gave up and 11-9 lead to go down 11-13.

The crowd was cheering on both sides of the pitch and both teams gave the crowd what they wanted.

A massive score by Clem (UV) to open up the final, a great layout point by Gui Clou (UV), an amazing catch by Justin skying some 4 or 5 other people, a game winning handblock by Dom (Cobra) & a ton of great D's,hucks,pulls and insanely brilliant swings by Nasser (UV). Yes, the crowd loved it and there was a great atmosphere to prove it. Here's a little interview with Nas, a legend on the Ultimate field having played for a.o. Ultimate Vibration(FR),Wizards(CH),Stinks,UTI(UK),Skogs(SWE),Ironside(USA)

-Was Vibration Old Stars a real reunion with the old Ultimate Vibration players ?

"Yeah we decided to play a tourney with the Old Vibration players in 2011 but unfortunately my brother Faissoil, Msee, Abel were not with us and Daane didn't play because he was injured…

We played with 10 guys on friday and 11 on Saturday and Sunday because we invite Greg to play with us but playing with 11 players during 3 days is hard.

Friday was very hard because we played 4 games but we were very happy to have lost only one game against Freespeed. On Saturday and Sunday we played a lot of hard games and that made us a little tired during the final."

-You almost didn’t leave the field during the final, maybe one point ? Are you really in that great shape after having played with Ironside in the US of A ? Was it really so different over there ?

"Yeah I played the whole game in the quarter finals vs Cota Rica and the final.

It was kind of stupid because I was very tired and during some point I didn't play hard enough in D but I feel in good shape this time so it was ok.

Playing in the US is very different to the Ultimate in Europe because the game moves much faster and is more physical and the practices are very hard."

-Were the Vibe players impressed by Cobra Kai ? Or their comeback ? Vibration seemed to have the victory in their hands ?

"We played Cobra in the power pool and we lost so we decided to use the same strategy as we used against Freespeed: starting very hard in D and run a lot in O and see if we could get a couple of chances to have a break.

The strategy worked great in both games but we started to be tired in the second half of the final so we started taking some bad decisions which eventually lead us to losing the final."

-What do you think about Tom’s Tourney ?

"I think Tom's tourney is a great tourney ! Cool that there are 2 open divisions and 1 women division. The complex is great and this year division 1 had a lot of good teams like Cobra Kai , Cota Rica, CUSB La Fotta, Freespeed... etc.

When I saw our first pool I knew it was going to be hard for us."

-After having lost the final of TT in 2002 against Red Lights with Ultimate Vibration are you coming back in 2012 with the same team to get the revenge and the victory ?

"Probably yes but I hope we will have some more legs ;)"

Picture above : A big bottle of Chimay might help get our french buddies from Vibration Old Stars get over the disappointment of not having won the tournament. Nothing to be sorry about though, they showed one hell of a fighting spirit and I'm sure they will get their "revanche" one way or the other :)

Of course Open Division 1 wasn't all there was to see this weekend.

In LADIES Division the Swiss National Ladies Team beat the Better Half Of Mixed (FR).

In semi finals these Swiss ladies also beat Plan B, a really strong belgian team consisting of the women from the National Mixed Team a.k.a. Plan B going to EUC this year. They ended up in a nice 3d place and are really hungry for more this year !

In OPEN DIVISION 2 there was another big surprise : Our very own belgian pride DIABOLIC HEAVEN beat Sun from Paris (FR) in a thrilling final. This team from Hasselt,BE almost played the whole tourney as a coed team and has shown Europe that practice makes perfect. A young ambitious team lead by an ambitious coach who you will definitely be hearing more about. A huge thumbs up for this team !!

As most of you will probably know, the belgians are quite famous for having a good spirit in general.

This year's TT didn't prove it in all divisions (as Gentle won Spirit in 3 of the last 5 editions of TT) but in Open Division 2 the spirit was won by Funkadelic Disc Band and this is something really worth writing about :

FUNKADELIC DISC BAND was one of the very first teams in Belgium and holds the organiser of the 1988 WORLD Ultimate Championships in Leuven,BE. This team changed it's name to JetSet somewhere around the year 2000 (correct me if I'm wrong) but the coolest thing about last weekend was that this also was a big reunion team. The average playing experience on this team was something about 15 years, so you know there had to be a lot of players playing even much longer than this. It's always nice to see people get united and reunited through a shared passion of Ultimate and it's more than nice to see this result in an ever-important Spirit award at a huge tourney.

Spirit in Open division went to the Irish Open Team (or at least half of it, since they played as two teams), in this case Ireland X. These boys in green are always known for there amazing spirit, good level of play and yeah, also some bigtime partying !

Same goes for the Irish Ladies, a bunch of enthousiastic great Ultimate players who also took this year's spirit award in the ladies division.

Finally, all of you who have ever been there know that Tom's Tourney stands for good times.

If you've never witnessed this, you might have to consider coming over for Tom's Tourney 2011.

Something tells me that the 20th edition of this more than lovely tournament will be one to never forget.

And another one not to forget : Keep Tom's memory alive, because Tom's Tourney is not just a name, it's most of all a dedication to Tom Vanryckeghem, one of Freezzzbeezzz' most talented players who unfortunately passed away at the too young age of 24 after an accident in 1996. 

A huge thanks to Glenn and his entire crew for serving us these good times.

You know we like it.

Final results can be found below ;

more info at http://www.tomstourney.be/

1. Cobra Kai (UK)

2. Vibration Old Stars (F)

3. Freespeed (CH)

4. CUSB La Fotta (I)

5. Heidees (D)

6. Cotarica (I)

7. Fire of London (UK)

8. CamboCakes (NL)

9. Ireland Y (IRE)

10. Silence (CZ)

11. Ireland X (IRE)

12. Chevron Old Stars (UK)

13. Catchup (A)

14. Gentle (B)

15. Team Shark (UK)

16. Belgian Open (B)

17. Tchac (F)

18. Catalyst (E)

19. Crazy Dogs (CH)

20. Iznogood (F)

Spirit of the game : Ireland X

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Results Ladies Division

1. Swiss National Ladies Team (CH)

2. Better Half of Mixed (F)

3. Plan B (B)

Spirit of the game : Irish Ladies

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Results Open Division 2

1. Diabolic Heaven (B)

2. Sun (F)

3. Freezzz Beezzz (B)

Spirit of the game : Funkadelic Disc Band Millenium Edition

TOM'S TOURNEY 2011 - First Results !

COBRA KAI won the open division 1 after an exciting final against Vibration Old Stars (13-11) !!
SWISS NATIONAL WOMEN won the ladies division.
DIABOLIC HEAVEN won 2nd division after beating Sun from Paris.

Oh I love this tourney.
Thanks to Glenn and his crew/team Freezzzbeezzz for hosting us in such a perfect way !
Full report is on it's way. (trying to be cutting edge here :) )