The best in one of the fastest growing sports in Australia – ultimate frisbee – will descend on Nelson Bay this week for the annual mixed national championship.
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Tournament director Simon Farrow, from Hills Ultimate Frisbee Association in Sydney, said he has long wanted to hold an event at Tomaree Sports Complex.
With Hills being named as hosts of the 2017 Australian Mixed Ultimate Championship, Farrow said this provided an ideal opportunity to hold the tournament in the Bay.
“Port Stephens is a wonderful location,” he said.
“The weather is perfect and the complex is sand-based underneath, meaning if it rains it dries quickly.
“When you’re bringing so many people from all over Australia to a location for a tournament, you want to try and make sure that it goes ahead no matter what.”
Ultimate combines the quick passes of soccer or netball, the leaping marks of AFL and the diving catches of cricket.
Unlike these sports, ultimate is self adjudicated. There is no referee to penalise players.
The game relies on the ‘spirit’ of players abiding by the rules.
“One of the amazing things about ultimate is people become very honest when they don’t have a referee penalising them,” Farrow said.
“It’s quite refreshing for a sport.”
There used to be only one level of ultimate in Australia until the Australian Flying Disc Association, the sport’s governing body, saw a need to create a second tier to accommodate up-and-comers.
Division two, while still competitive, is for players who have not yet reached the elite level or those in division one looking for more relaxed competition.
About 500 competitors from NSW, ACT, Queensland, Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia will travel to Nelson Bay for the division two mixed ultimate championship.
Clubs from as far as Townsville in Northern Queensland and along the Great Dividing Range will also send teams to compete in the tournament.
Victoria and NSW will field a majority of the 24 teams set to compete across the three-day tournament which will begin on Friday, October 20 and wind up on Sunday, October 22.
Newcastle Ultimate Frisbee Club will field two mixed teams in the championship.
Stuart Sinclair, president of the club, said it was easy to recruit the 40 players it needed for the championship.
“Being so close to Newcastle it was easy to get volunteers,” he said.
“We’ll be pretty competitive. We’ll be in the mix when it comes down to finals.”
The Newcastle club hosted the division one mixed championship in Raymond Terrace in 2006 and the men and women’s singles championships in Newcastle in 2012.
Lining up for Newcastle in the 2017 division two mixed championship will be Tim Hayes and Robbie Pukallus from Port Stephens.
Hayes, from Medowie, has been playing ultimate for five years.
“Someone asked me to try it. I did and it was lots of fun,” he said.
For the past four years Hayes, a Shoal Bay-based personal trainer, has competed in the Australian men’s and mixed championships.
In June, he played for Australia in the mixed beach championships in France.
Hayes said he was happy to see the mixed tournament being hosted in Nelson Bay.
“I’m really looking forward to showing Nelson Bay off to the friends I have made from all around Australia, and to my teammates from Newcastle,” he said.
“I’m looking forward to people coming down and checking it out, seeing what ultimate is all about.”
Discs will begin flying at Tomaree Sports Complex about 10.30am on Friday and will wind down around 7pm. The championship will kick off again on Saturday at 9am and run to 6.30pm. On Sunday the action will be held between 9am and 4pm.
Entry is free for spectators.