The WFDF 2016 World Ultimate and Guts Championship is prepared for the final gold medal rounds today at the Allianz Park stadium in London, home of Rugby’s reigning Premiership Champions, Saracens RFC. Championship finals will be held in the mixed gender, women’s, and men’s divisions, capping the weeklong event that began Sunday 19 June. At the event today Australia will take on the USA in the mixed division, Colombia will face off against the USA in the women’s division, and Japan will play against the USA in the Men’s division. The preliminary and play-off rounds of the WUGC 2016 were held over the last week at the University College London (UCL) Sports Ground in London Colney. More than 3,000 athletes have competed in the event, representing 115 Ultimate teams from 39 countries.
“It’s been a great week of disc sports,” stated WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch. There were many competitive and spirited games, with several upsets in semi-final rounds heading into today’s finals. 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.”
Friday’s Results
For Ultimate in the mixed division, Australia upset first seed Canada in the first semi-final, 15-12, while the USA easily dispatched France by 15-4. In the men’s division semi-final, the USA outmatched Canada by 15-8 and Japan beat Australia 15-9. In the women’s division semi-finals, Colombia upset first seed Japan in a defensive battle 10-7, and the USA defeated North American rival Canada 15-10.
In the men’s masters division final, Team USA bested Canada 15-10 to take gold, with host Great Britain taking bronze over Denmark 15-9. In the women’s masters, the USA also defeated Canada 15-10 for the gold medal, with Australia taking bronze over Japan 14-12. New Zealand was awarded the “spirit award” in both divisions.
For Guts, the USA 1 team defeated a strong Japan team for the championship. Great Britain bested USA2 for bronze. USA 1 was also presented with the “spirit award,” evidencing their spirited and supportive play throughout the week.
Video Telecasts
Over two dozen games have already been livestreamed throughout the week The game streams are available at http://livestream.com, at http://wfdf.sport/live, the WFDF Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/worldflyingdisc, WFDF’s youtube channel at www.youtube.com/wfdfchannel, and the World Games channel at http://channel.theworldgames.org/. A two hour broadcast will be televised in North America on Saturday 25 June on CBS Sports Network from 1600-1800 EDT.
Background
Competition this week has been 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.
A total of 39 countries competed 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.
This year’s event represents the 14th edition of the World Ultimate and Guts Championships. The first event was hosted in 1983 in Gothenburg Sweden and is now held on a quadrennial basis.