The Santa Cruzification of the Rankings

The beautiful sea breezes of UC Santa Cruz have blown away the previous order on the freestyle rankings and unseated the #1 players on both the Open and Women’s list. This month, FPA Worlds Prague, the Summer 2011 Berlin hat and the 2011 Butch Cassidy Cup all fell off the rankings lists. Four new events – the 2013 FPA Worlds, the 2013 Japan Overall Championships, 2013 Sandslash and the 2013 Butch Cassidy Cup – were added.

There are a slew of changes beyond the #1’s on both the Open and Women’s lists. Let’s talk about Open first.

Open Rankings

Jake Gauthier ends Marco Prati’s 12 month reign at number one, taking back the top spot that Cega earned last summer. It’s not lonely at the top, though. The top three players are separated by only 16 points. The top five are within 65 points of #1, and the top six are within 100 points of the summit.

James Wiseman started 2013 ranked 17. He’s now ranked 2, only eight points behind Jake, after a strong season that culminated in his runner up finish in Open Pairs at the worlds. Here’s how close James got to number one. His team finished sixth in the co-op final with the same points as the fifth place team. They lost on a tiebreaker. Winning that tiebreaker or scoring 0.1 more points would have given James the number one spot. Matt Gauthier and James finished 0.7 points short of winning Open Pairs. If they had won, James would have the number one spot and a commanding cushion. Second by decimals.

The top places at the world are worth a lot of points. Winning both Open Pairs (for 299.5 points) and Open Co-op (for 292 points) brings me from number 20 to number 3. I also had the fortune of defending very few points from Prague after scratching from co-op and finishing in the middle of the pack in the Open Pairs finals.

Jake, James and myself all have a strong mathematical chance of ending the year at number one. But that’s not all! Paul Kenny jumps back into the top five from #11 after a 2nd in Co-op and a 3rd in Pairs. He’s within striking distance too.

Of the top five players, Clay Collera weathered the storm the best. Despite missing both finals in Santa Cruz, he moves up to #5. This anomaly is mainly due to so many players losing large chunks of points. Clay’s points stay exactly the same because he has such a strong cushion of results with few Prague points to defend.

Matt Gauthier and Dave Murphy both make big moves after winning Co-op. In Matt’s case, a first in Co-op and a second in Pairs move him from 14 to 6. Murf’s 1st in Co-op and 3rd in Pairs vault him from 46 all the way to 17.

Other upward movers included Co-op runner up Jeff O’Brien (41 to 29), Dave Schiller (79 to 49) and Co-op finalist Matteo Feller (121 to 71).

Those who didn’t defend their Prague points lost a lot of ground. Cega (1 to 8), Randy Silvey (2 to 10), Claudio Cigna (3 to 11), Chris Lamred (10 to 18), Balu (13 to 21), Dave Lewis (28 to 67) and Mahoney (55 to 104) all tumbled on this month’s list.

Women’s Rankings

This month brings another return to number one. Lisa Hunrichs ends Eleonora Imazio and Judith Haas’ hold on the top spot. The last time Lisa was at number one was all the way back in August 2006. Eleonora falls to 6 after losing all her points from Prague, including a first place reward for Mixed Pairs. Meanwhile, Irena Kulisanova’s runner up finish in Mixed Pairs in Santa Cruz helps her rise to number 3, and Lori Daniels holds at number 2. The other strong movers in the top ten are Emma Kahle, rising from 7 to 4, and Cindy St. Mary, re-entering the top 10 at 7 from 14 last month.

Because of the scarcity of women’s and mixed pairs events, the top 10 is likely to keep its shape through the end of the year, and Lisa Hunrichs is almost assured of finishing 2013 at the top.

Bayou Blasters: 4 FPA Worlds Pairs Titles in a Row

From 1983 to 1986 Jim Benson and Deaton Mitchell were the FPA Worlds Open Pairs champions, setting the record at four consecutive wins in Open Pairs. It’s an achievement that has yet to be equaled. Based on the FPA Worlds winners list at freestyle-frisbee.com, the closest anyone has come seems to be Dave Lewis and I with three wins and a second place over four years (1st-2nd-1st-1st). Tom Leitner has a crazy streak of three titles, three second places and a fourth place between 2003 and 2009 (2nd-2nd-1st-2nd-4th-1st-1st). Joey Hudoklin, Skippy Jammer, Dan Yarnell, Dave Schiller, Matt Gauthier, Jake Gauthier and Matteo Gaddoni have all won two titles within four years.

So many variables have to fall into place for this record beyond being a great player. No ill-timed injuries or illness. A consistently high level of competition play. No other teams having career performances in the finals. Judges appreciating your play. No random puffs of wind at unfortunate times. It makes the Blasters’ four year run even more amazing.

Videos three of their four wins are now available on YouTube. Enjoy the dominance.

Win #2: 1984

Win #3: 1985

Win #4: 1986

The fourpeat. Oh, and it’s dropless too.

I’ll update this post when the video from 1983 surfaces.

Spiritcamp 2013

Spiritcamp 2013
Feriendorf Eisenberg, Germany
7. – 8. September 2013

Open Pairs Final

1. Hess, Florian/Finner, Freddy (TOT 39 | EX 15.8 | AI 13.3 | DIF 9.9)
2. Dittrich, Robert/Vogt, Heiko (TOT 36.1 | EX 16 | AI 10.2 | DIF 9.9)
3. Lamred, Christian/Höhne, Sascha (TOT 35.8 | EX 12.7 | AI 13.3 | DIF 9.8)
4. Wunder, Woo/Krüger, Philipp (TOT 33.2 | EX 12.7 | AI 9.7 | DIF 10.8)
5. Strunz, Bianca/Weissenberger, Dominique (TOT 32.5 | EX 14.7 | AI 9.7 | DIF 8.1)
6. Hosseinian, Mehrdad/Hannemann, Kolja (TOT 32.3 | EX 12.8 | AI 9.4 | DIF 10.1)
7. Notzel, Thomas/Lustiger, Dan (TOT 29.7 | EX 12.3 | AI 9.3 | DIF 8.1)
8. Simon, Ilka/Schwarz, Nico (TOT 24.8 | EX 9.9 | AI 7.4 | DIF 7.5)

Open Coop Final

1. Hess, Florian/Höhne, Sascha/Vogt, Heiko (TOT 41.5 | EX 15.5 | AI 13.9 | DIF 12.1)
2. Leist, Alex/Finner, Freddy/Lamred, Christian (TOT 35.8 | EX 12.6 | AI 11.8 | DIF 11.4)
3. Dünkel, Stefan/Hosseinian, Mehrdad/Krüger, Philipp (TOT 35.3 | EX 12.5 | AI 10.7 | DIF 12.1)
4. Wunder, Woo/Dittrich, Robert/Hannemann, Kolja (TOT 32.1 | EX 11.1 | AI 9.9 | DIF 11.1)
5. Simon, Ilka/Goltz, Tom “Harry”/Strunz, Bianca (TOT 31.4 | EX 12.4 | AI 9.3 | DIF 9.7)
6. Edelmann, Benno/Zverina, Jan/Schwarz, Nico (TOT 28.1 | EX 10.7 | AI 9.3 | DIF 8.1)

Mixed Pairs Final

1. Haas, Judith/Leist, Alex (TOT 33.1 | EX 17 | AI 6.5 | DIF 9.6)
2. Strunz, Bianca/Weissenberger, Dominique (TOT 31.2 | EX 15.2 | AI 6.1 | DIF 9.9)
3. Rosa, Greyce Ayla D’avila/Finner, Freddy (TOT 23 | EX 10.4 | AI 4.6 | DIF 8)
4. Simon, Ilka/Edelmann, Benno (TOT 22.8 | EX 9.4 | AI 5.8 | DIF 7.6)
5. Schmeisser, Katrin/Engeter, Udo (TOT 11 | EX 5.1 | AI 2.1 | DIF 3.8)

Spirit of the Game

Christian Lamred
Continue reading “Spiritcamp 2013”

2013 Sandslash

Dear Jamming Family !

First of all, our little jammers community, would like to send congratulations to new FPAW champions! We are watching videos with our jaw on the floor 🙂

After few days of brain and body recovery still getting back to reality from my dream that has happend at Debki last week. For me that was the most amazing frisbee weekend i’ve ever had !!!

So many good vibes, laugh :), joy of play at the beach, positive people, discs… Weather was perfect and we were jamming like crazy in “party mode” at the same time. Sandslash is more about fun than competition so only two round of open pairs took place. In this first freestyle tournament/jam in Poland we had 3 days of all day jamming and 1 day of competition with totally 14 players involved. This was also our first freestyle players meeting/jam which will make a huge impact on polish players – thanks goes to more experienced jammers like Ilka, Pavel, Notzi for all the ‘tips’ you gave us! This year was definitely a test for us – how does the freestyle tournament works? Experience we collected this year will make next freestyle edition even better (hard to believe it can be “better” 🙂 and definitely more promoted.

Thanks visit of director of The Invisible String, Jan, we had an opportunity to watch the movie for the first time in Poland. And what place is better to watch frisbee movie than a beach? At Friday evening we had premiere and Kontener Beach Bar. We couldn’t provide high quality of equipment, but despite that fact, for me – it was magic to sit there with a beer on my disc, watching with 100 other frisbee players this great documentary about “love between man and flying plastic”. Thank you so much for that !!!

The next two days were full of jaming till night at the beach. We had music-box which helped us energize freestylers with funky tunes as they were hitting moves to the beat. So much happened that is even hard for me to describe the atmosphere we had at Debki. I’m so sad that we haven’t had enough time all together to visit other jam spots there. And at night parties were just amazing with all of You! I haven’t been dancing and having so much laugh since 1999….

No time to write more, but i would like too….Check facebook for videos, photos , and more report soon…

FREESTYLE RESULTS (SATURDAY):

Open pairs finals:

1.Pavel Baranyk (CZ) / Thomas Notzel (GER) – 59/60 points
2.Ilka Simon (GER) / David Tomiak (PL) – 50/60 points
3.Korneliusz Zagórski (PL) / Bartek Dusowski (PL) – 44/60 points

Open pairs semi-finals:

Pool A
1.Ilka Simon (GER) / David Tomiak (PL)
2.Korneliusz Zagórski (PL) / Bartek Dusowski (PL)
3.Kamil Calinski (PL) / Maciek Grabowski (PL)

Pool B
1.Pavel Baranyk (CZ) / Thomas Notzel (GER)
2.Konrad Patris (PL) / Michal Maciolek (PL)
3.Tomasz Hemerling (PL )/ Piotr Rasajewski (PL)
4. Radek Lenczewski (PL) / Michal Roginski (PL)

Freestyle Magazine Awards:
Spirit of the jam: Konrad Patris (PL)
Most fashionable person: Kudlaty (PL)

All what happened was so intense that almost all of jammers said that they feel sad on sunday/monday that they have to leave. I really hope most of You can make it next year and it will not collide with date of FPA Worlds. We have so much to offer :)))

Big thanks to: all of people involved in tournament as a jammer or competitor, Jan for bringing The Invisible String to Poland, Sebastian and Ilka for helping with judging system, Pavel for showing us his amazing skills, Notzi for ass-checking , Kudlaty for sleeping at the beach to secure our jam-spot, Radek for rolling, Bartek and Kornel for participation, ultimate players for taking part in freestyle tournament, Freddy Finner and Bill Wright for supporting us with jammerpacks and whizrings, all GrandMaster Flash team for organization of main event and letting us attach freestyle to Sandslash, Kontener Debki for endless parties at the beach…

Photos and Videos soon….

…keep it in the air with ZZZs…

Konrad Patris and Michal Maciolek

The Multicopter Jam

Ron Lampman and his multicopter stumbled on a Labor Day jam at Ocean Shores featuring Lisa Hunrichs, Matt Gauthier, Jake Gauthier, Ryan Young, Johnny Trevino and Mike Galloupe. Aerial footage!

2013 Butch Cassidy Cup

2013 Butch Cassidy Cup
Karlsruhe, Germany
August 31 – September 1, 2013

Finals
1. Hess, Florian/Scherzinger, Sascha (TOT 46.2 | EX 16.4 | AI 16.2 | DIF 13.6)
2. Leist, Alex/Vogt, Heiko (TOT 44.7 | EX 16.6 | AI 15.6 | DIF 12.5)
3. Lamred, Christian/Dittrich, Robert (TOT 44.5 | EX 16.5 | AI 15.3 | DIF 12.7)
4. Höhne, Sascha/Faustini, Emanuele (TOT 40.4 | EX 15.4 | AI 13.4 | DIF 11.6)
5. Finner, Freddy/Lustiger, Dan (TOT 39.3 | EX 13.3 | AI 13.8 | DIF 12.2)
6. Götz, Markus/Friebe, Jens (TOT 37.3 | EX 14.2 | AI 12.5 | DIF 10.6)
7. Haas, Judith/Schuster, Julia (TOT 33.6 | EX 14.4 | AI 10.9 | DIF 8.3)
8. Klos, Nadine/Dittrich, Lina (TOT 31.6 | EX 12 | AI 11 | DIF 8.6)

Semifinal Pool A
1. Höhne, Sascha/Faustini, Emanuele (TOT 42.8 | EX 17.9 | AI 12.5 | DIF 12.4)
2. Finner, Freddy/Lustiger, Dan (TOT 39.1 | EX 14.3 | AI 11.6 | DIF 13.2)
3. Lamred, Christian/Dittrich, Robert (TOT 37.6 | EX 13.2 | AI 10.9 | DIF 13.5)
4. Haas, Judith/Schuster, Julia (TOT 30.4 | EX 11.6 | AI 8.7 | DIF 10.1)
5. Kriss, Jonathan/Nicco, Fabrizio “Nino” (TOT 30.3 | EX 11.6 | AI 9.3 | DIF 9.4)
6. Bragagnolo, Anna/Pecchiari, Andrea (TOT 21 | EX 9.3 | AI 4.3 | DIF 7.4)

Semifinal Pool B
1. Hess, Florian/Scherzinger, Sascha (TOT 42.1 | EX 16.5 | AI 14.2 | DIF 11.4)
2. Leist, Alex/Vogt, Heiko (TOT 37.2 | EX 15.2 | AI 12.6 | DIF 9.4)
3. Goetz, Markus/Friebe, Jens (TOT 36.1 | EX 14.9 | AI 12.2 | DIF 9)
4. Klos, Nadine/Dittrich, Lina (TOT 34.5 | EX 15.2 | AI 11.6 | DIF 7.7)
5. Weissenberger, Dominique/Imazio, Eleonora (TOT 34.2 | EX 13.6 | AI 12 | DIF 8.6)
6. Schleicher, Jochen/Neumann, Lars (TOT 23 | EX 9.5 | AI 6.9 | DIF 6.6)

Spirit of the Game: Fabrizio “Nino” Nicco

Table Kicker Winner: Alex Leist / Heiko Vogt

Tournament Summary (auf Deutsch): http://www.freestylefrisbee.de/de/news/1229-bcc-2013