The single worst place for an ultimate frisbee championship might be somewhere with heavy rain and high winds.
Yet those conditions made for quite a show at a World Flying Disc Federation event this summer in Ireland.
Before the match, the weather was unusually warm and sunny in Limerick. It held right up until the start of the World Masters Ultimate Club Championships, when with almost comedic timing, just as teams approached the fields, so too did a squall of cold rain and vicious winds.
More than 2,700 athletes representing 28 countries were left with the challenge to fight through sideways-pelting raindrops and deafening gusts point after point for eight days until finally one team is crowned champion.
For Rochesterian Marisa Wilson, that dream became a reality.
Her team — Molasses Disaster, from the Northeast region of the U.S. — took first place in the Grandmasters Mixed Division, a unique category where teams are made up of men and women older than 37.
“Their offense had it, we got the turn and we scored,” said Wilson, 39. “And that put us up by one point heading into half. And we just held on to that one-point differential and that's what got us the win.”
Wilson’s teammate Angela Dana, also from Rochester, said she was “shocked” by the victory.
“Because that's like really winning a game like on the knife's edge, like that’s a very close game,” Dana said.
“We've worked really hard our whole lives to play as best as we can and learn as much as we can. And you know, as an adult, I'm turning 39 this month, there’s not a lot of opportunities for (older) athletes and I feel so lucky to be able to push my mind and body to this level and compete against other people who want the same thing.”
Ultimate frisbee is like a combination of football, soccer and basketball. Except the ball is flat and the offense can’t let it touch the ground. You can’t run with the disc, so players have to throw and catch with their teammates to advance toward their scoring end zone.
But in Limerick, the rain makes the frisbee slick and difficult to control. The swirling winds threaten to either turf every disc or send it sailing far from its target.
"The wind would pick up and you would see a catch that someone would normally make and it would just bounce out of their hands,” Wilson said. “And it's like, I hate to see that for the other team, too.”
Empathy is intrinsic to ultimate, no matter how competitive it gets. The first rule is called “Spirit of the Game,” and it’s part of what makes this sport different from any other. Instead of referees, players on the field are responsible for calling fouls and rule violations.
“Everybody has their own kind of definition of spirit of the game,” said Brian Gisel, the vice president of the World Flyng Disc Federation, the organizing body of international tournaments like this one.
“The idea is, it's a culture of acceptance, and knowing that we're out there playing with other players, not against other players … We want to play competitively, but we don't win at all costs,” Giselle said as he stood in drizzling rain next to the field where Wilson and Dana’s team just won. “Somebody once said that if you win the game, but lose the respect of your opponents, you haven't won anything at all. And that's very much true for ultimate.”
Those values show up elsewhere, too, Dana said, whether in coaching the Brighton High School team back home, as she does, or in life outside of ultimate.
“I feel good teaching the sport to young people because you need to know the rules,” Dana said. “You need to respect your opponent. You need to play as fairly as you possibly can. And I definitely am my best self when I get to play ultimate. It's everything to me.”
Wilson said the ultimate frisbee community has transformed her life, too.
“I've moved many places throughout my life, and like ultimate frisbee is how I've always found my people. It's how I found my family … my husband,” Wilson said. “So it's just been such a big part of my life.”
That sense of wholeness and belonging almost went away with the arrival of COVID-19.
Ultimate is a relatively young sport that has been growing rapidly in the last 20 years. And that progress seemed to come to a halt when team sports competitions shut down. That was to prevent the risk of spreading COVID-19.
But Gisel said looking at the number of participants today, the sport has come back strong for players of all ages — and there are rumblings of starting a new division for older players. Players who might qualify for senior citizen discounts; players older than the sport itself.
“There's even people talking about what the next level is, and they're calling that ‘Legends,’” Gisel said. “So that might be the next division that we come up.”
It’s possible. When Gisel first got involved with the World Flying Disc Federation in the late '90s, the mixed gender division that Dana and Wilson competed in didn’t exist.
Now, the gender-all-inclusive style of ultimate — featuring athletes in their 20s, 30s and 40s — is being showcased in The World Games, an event supported by the International Olympic Committee.
Editor's note: WXXI reporter Noelle E. C. Evans competed in the women's masters division of the World Masters Ultimate Club Championships.
