James Wiseman Takes Over The #1 Ranking

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Photo courtesy Jordan Haro and Spread The Jam Project

After the world championships, three players were locked in a very tight battle for number one – Jake Gauthier, James Wiseman and Arthur Coddington. Only 16 points separated the three.

James Wiseman struck first post-worlds by playing the Oktoberfest event. His runner up finish with Sophie Wolf was strong, but there weren’t enough entrants to boost his ranking point total. No problem, he just went to the Berlin Hat Autumn 2013 Edition, drew Tobias Burzan and Freddy Finner as his teammates and won it for 146 points. He was the leader in the clubhouse going into Beach Stylers, where both Jake and Arthur would compete. The Berlin Hat win also moved Freddy into the top 20 and Tobias into the top 80.

The math looked like winning Beach Stylers could put either Jake or Arthur on top. The math, though, was more complicated because of Beach Styler’s two divisions – pairs and turboshred. Arthur teamed up with Matt Gauthier to win pairs on the first day of the tournament, with Jake and Amy Schiller coming in a close second. The next day’s turboshred was disastrous for Arthur, where he was edged out of the final by Dave Zeff. Jake had no such problems, sailing through to the final, then winning the event. Jake accumulated 128.75 points across the two divisions, seven points short of James’ point total.

Another interesting dynamic emerged at Beach Stylers. By winning pairs and finishing second in turboshred, Matt Gauthier entered into the mix for the end-of-year number one spot. Matt has had an insane year, winning two titles at the world championships and coming less than a point away from sweeping Open Pairs, Open Co-op and Mixed Pairs. With Virginia States and Beach Stylers wins, he’s racked up dominating results. The factor keeping both Matt and Arthur 30-50 points away from James and Jake is the fact that neither played in the 2012 world championships. Their advantage in closing that gap is their 8th best result. Both of them have much weaker 8th results than James and Jake, giving them big upside for any strong tournament finish.

The 2013 rankings battle is not quite over. James has entered Lazzaroni later this month, and a Northern California turboshred event is forming around the annual post-Thanksgiving jam at Sonoma State. JikJam looms too. Strong finishes by any of the four top players could shift the end-of-year rankings picture.

2013 Austin Winter Series Photos

Clayo photographed the hat co-op event at the Austin Winter Series and shared his images on Flickr. The hat event was an incredible opportunity to see new and random Freestyle Frisbee teams of all skill levels. Players were seeded into A and B hats. Each team had an A-player (typically one with multiple world titles) and two B-players. Due to the incredible turnout at the event, the B hat included some legends of the game.

2013 Austin Winter Series Open Results

2013 Austin Winter Series Open
Austin, TX
January 12-13, 2013

Open Pairs Finals
1. Jake Gauthier/Arthur Coddington [video]
2. Randy Silvey/James Wiseman [video]
3. Larry Imperiale/Ryan Young [video]
4. Toddy Brodeur/Bob Boulware [video]
5. Jonathan Willett/Bill Wright [video]
6. Dan Yarnell/Jakub Matela (Mistiq) [video]

Open Semis Pool A
1. James Wiseman/Randy Silvey
2. Bob Boulware/Toddy Brodeur
3. Bill Wright/Jonathan Willet
4. Michael Galloupe/Johnny Trevino
5. Doug Korns/John Titcomb
6. Glenn Whitlock/Lou Sumrall

Open Semis Pool B
1. Jake Gauthier/Arthur Coddington [video – Facebook login may be required]
2. Larry Imperiale/Ryan Young
3. Dan Yarnell/Jakub Matela (Mistiq)
4. Charlene Powell/Steve Hays
5. Rodney Sanchez/Bethany Sanchez
6. Charles Logan/Eric Gibbons

Hat Finals
1. James Wiseman/Matt Hull/Jonathan Willett
2. Bill Wright/Joel Rogers/Johnny Trevino
3. Ryan Young/Rodney Sanchez/Charles Logan
4. Larry Imperiale/Doug Korns/Michael Galloupe
5. Toddy Brodeur/Charlene Powell/John Titcomb
6. Jake Guathier/Jakub Matela (Mistiq)/Eric Gibbons
7. Randy Silvey/Chris Baker/Steve Hays
8. Arthur Coddington/Lou Sumrall/Bob Boulware
9. Dan Yarnell/Bethany Sanchez/Glen Whitlock