Women in Sport Commission

Esther Omuseni (KEN)

Chair

Esther represents Women in Sport for the All Africa Flying Disc Federation (AAFDF), the continental federation for the Disc community in Africa. Esther is captain of Kisumu Frisbee Club in Kenya. She has been playing Ultimate since 2015 taking part in local, national, regional and international tournaments. Esther represented Kenya at the WFDF World Championships in Ohio Cincinnati in 2018. Esther has initiated local Disc Sport development activities with international support such as: Frisbee clinics for local teams, outreach activities for university students, and sessions for children including at an orphanage. Esther is passionate about Ultimate Frisbee and strongly believes in the potential of women in sport, especially when they are given the opportunity to prove themselves. Esther works in medical research and has a degree in biomedical science.

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Adriana Withers (CAN)

As a founding partner of VC Ultimate Inc., Adriana has worked tirelessly with players, teams, leagues and governing bodies from around the world to grow and create partnerships in Ultimate since 1998. Through her work on non-profit boards, as an advisor to women-in-ultimate focused organizations and as the leader of 3 international businesses, Adriana strives to be a strong advocate for the development of ultimate and for the promotion of equity in sport.

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Amandine Constant (FRA)

Amandine is the Secretary General of the French Federation of Flying Disc (FFFD) and holds the position of Secretary-General of the European Flying Disc Federation (EFDF). Amandine has been playing Ultimate in France since 2006 and is proud of winning the Spirit of the Game award at WCBU 2011 in Italy with the French Women’s team. Elected to the French Flying Disc Federation in 2012 and the European Flying Disc Federation in 2014 as General Secretary, Amandine is active not only in the local disc sports community but she’s also been part of different national and international projects. Amandine was also the Event Director for WCBU 2017 in Royan. She works for a Microelectronics international company as Production Operations Manager in her “real life.”

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Benedicte Audet (CAN)

Benedicte is a member of the WFDF Freestyle Committee. She started playing Freestyle with the New York Jammers in Manhattan in 2015 and has since moved to Berlin, Germany, where she is part of the Berlin Jammers crew. Through Freestyle she has had the opportunity to travel around the world and participate in numerous competitions and outreach programmes. The high point of her freestyle career so far was participating in the World Urban Games sponsored by the Olympic committee in September 2019 and representing her home country of Canada. Benedicte is studying for a Bachelor's degree in Political Science and is focusing on participating in and helping organize local tournaments in Berlin in addition to "spreading the jam" to any curious, new and interested potential Freestylers. Her current projects include hosting workshops geared towards empowering and motivating women and children to start playing Freestyle Disc as well as organizing the Freestyle Players Association World Championships 2022 in Berlin, for which she will be tournament director.

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Camila Paiva Freitas Costa (BRA)

Camila (also known as Kaká) began playing Ultimate in 2017 at the University of Brasília (UnB - Brasília, Brazil) where she graduated with two degrees in Physical Education. Kaká is one of the coaches and captains of the mixed team Strix Brasília Ultimate and an athlete on the women's team Vorazes Ultimate. She loves traveling, especially to play in a tournament or to join an Ultimate practice session. Camila is also the leader of the Research & Education Commission in Organização Ultimate Brazil (OUB), a volunteer group of Ultimate players in Brazil sharing knowledge and helping the sport develop around the country. Camila believes that all environments should be inclusive, and assisted by an adequate education curriculum and methodology. She has learned that teaching the right values in any sport, can improve not only education but culture as well.

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Caroline “Caz” Malone (HKG)

Caroline “Caz'' Malone is the Chair of the WFDF Women in Sport Commission. She initiated and hosted gender equity workshops in the United States and in China, and managed the Gender Equity Toolkit released for WFDF in 2020, with translations in 2021. She was previously WFDF’s Deputy Chair of the Sport for All and Development Commission, AFDF Deputy Secretary General and President of the Ultimate Players Association of Qatar (UPAQ) while living in the country. Caz was an international Ultimate player for Open, Mixed and Women’s teams across three continents, and played for the debut national teams in World Ultimate Championships of the UAE in 2011 and Qatar in 2015. She has 18 years global journalism experience, a BSc in Economics and Philosophy from the London School of Economics and a Masters degree in Journalism from the University of Hong Kong.

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Elena Lamby (GER)

Elena began playing Ultimate in 2008 and currently coaches the Club Women’s team in Germany. She also works as a project manager for the prevention of sexual harassment and abuse in sports for the German Olympic Sports Confederation. With a background in gender studies and five years experience with projects around gender-based violence in sports, Elena hopes to bring valuable insight to the Commission, with a focus on perceptions of women in disc sports at a grassroots level.

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Erika Yumita (JPN)

Erika's first encounter with Disc Sports was during a PE class at junior high school in Mexico - one of the countries she lived in during her childhood. She then went on to play on her university's Ultimate team from 2000, and ever since in Japan. Erika competed at the WFDF Worlds in 2010, 2014, 2016, and at the most recent championships in 2018, where her team won a silver medal and the Spirit of the Game award in the Women's Masters division. Erika is a board member of the Japan Flying Disc Association (JFDA). She has been leading the JFDA Women's Committee since 2015, along with five others. They help raise awareness about gender equality and equity with the aim of increasing the number of female players, as well as extending the number of years that women play.

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Heidi Pekkola (FIN)

Deputy Chair, Women in Sport Commission

Heidi Pekkola is a former Finnish Ultimate player, who has played on the Finnish national teams, most recently in the masters divisions. Currently living in Brussels, Heidi works for the EU Office of the European Olympic Committees. As part of her work, she follows European sport policy developments and is a project manager of an EU-financed project on the strategic management of sport organisations. Heidi has a strong interest in promoting gender equality not only at the player level but also at the coaching and decision-making level.

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Johanna von Toggenburg (LBN)

Sustainability Officer

Johanna is the WFDF Sustainability Officer and former President of the Lebanon Flying Disc Federation. She has been playing Ultimate in the UK, France, Belgium, Italy, the US, Palestine and Lebanon since 2003. In early 2015, Johanna started and coached the first Ultimate teams in Lebanon. Johanna is an environmental and sustainability expert, and currently works with the United Nations providing policy advisory on sustainable water and land management to governments in the Arab Region. Johanna is passionate about advocating for gender issues and developing and sharing ideas on how to involve more girls in flying disc sports and ensuring more women are represented in leadership positions.

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Karina Woldt (AUS)

WFDF Managing Director, Events And Operations

WFDF staff member since 2014 Karina has served as the Managing Director, Events and Operations for WFDF since 2014. She has been involved with professional sporting teams and major events management over 20 years, getting her start in both Australia and New Zealand. Before taking time to start her family, she served as the senior events services director for the FISA World Rowing Championships from 2008 to 2010 in Karapiro, New Zealand. From 2006 to 2008 she was Director of Operations of Elephant Management Co. Ltd. V8 Supercars, an event with over 182,000 spectators over three days. From 1999 to 2006, she was involved in a variety of events, including the Subaru Rally Team of Australia (Motorsport), Canberra Cannons (Basketball) and Canberra Raiders (Rugby League). Karina has significant experience on all aspects of event issues like accommodation and transportation, registration, and all other organisational aspects of World class events. A natural born English speaker, Karina is also fluent in German.

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Kate Bergeron (USA)

WFDF Treasurer

Board member: 2007-present Kate rejoined the Board as WFDF Treasurer in 2014, having held this position previously from 2008 through the end of 2012. She served as a WFDF board member since 2007 and has held numerous functions at the Ultimate Players Association (now USA Ultimate) including serving as its President from 2002 to 2004. Kate has worked as a coach for several Women’s Ultimate teams and recently won the Silver medal at 2014 World Ultimate Club Championships in the Women’s Masters division with Godiva. Kate is the Vice President, Hardware Engineering for Apple Inc. in Cupertino, CA. She has an Executive MBA and BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado.

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Mariem Mebsout (MOR)

Mariem started disc sports at a young age and started playing Ultimate four years ago with the Casablanca Club. Travelling all over Morocco to play in tournaments, she initially faced challenges playing a mixed-gender sport but took on leadership roles, including the head of communication for her club. In this position, she works to reach out and recruit more women to Ultimate.

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Sara Nicholson (USA)

Sara has been an avid disc golfer since 2007 and started playing competitively in 2008. In 2010, she began running charity disc golf events for her local nonprofits and clinics to help get more women playing. Sara worked for the Professional Disc Golf Association from 2011-2017 as the Memberships Manager then Women's initiatives consultant. During her time with the PDGA, she helped revamp the PDGA Women's Committee and start the PDGA Women's Global Event in 2012 - the largest PDGA event for a single demographic within the sport of disc golf. In 2016, Sara assisted in landing disc golf on the National Day Calendar. There is now an official National Disc Golf Day every year (International Calendar coming soon). Sara co-founded the nonprofit Throw Pink (2013) to get more women and girls playing disc golf while raising funds for women's health initiatives. She has assisted in running 10 PDGA World Championship events and numerous other disc golf events. Sara has competed in 119 PDGA Sanctioned events with 43 wins on her resume, including an Amateur United States Women's Championship title. She is passionate about the impact sports play on women's health both physically and mentally and has made it her life's mission to use her love for disc golf to make a difference in communities worldwide. When she's not working on her nonprofit or at her full-time job with Innova Disc Golf as their East Coast Donations and Event Coordinator, she enjoys playing disc golf, ultimate, hiking, and playing with her cats and dog.

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Yoonee Jeong (KOR)

Director at Large

Board member: 2018-present Yoonee first caught the Ultimate fever in 2004 and served as the first female president of Korea Ultimate Players Association (KUPA) from 2008 to 2010. She continued to play ultimate through marriage, work and three kids, and most recently was part of Singapore Women’s Team at the WBCU 2017 and Women’s Masters Team at the WMUCC 2018. She also was a Game Advisor for the U24 2018 and WUCC 2018. For her day job, Yoonee works at Telenor Group as a Director of Public and Regulatory Affairs. Previously, she has worked for international organizations such as the UN and World Bank as a technology public policy professional. She received her masters degree in International Development Policy from Duke University and her bachelors degree from Ateneo de Manila University.

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