Once a week we're looking to give the Brisbane Ultimate Blog over to a guest blogger, and this week we have the delightful 'Queen of Diamonds' herself, Danielle Smyth, who is recently returned from the World Ultimate Beach Championships in Brazil. Take it away Danielle!
“You know you’re in trouble when your face goes numb” (Bree Edgar)...with a comment like that, this was going to be one hell of a week at the World Beach Ultimate Championships in Brazil.
I arrived in Maceio only to find that my bag decided not to, but as Notty had my playing gear and…hell no cleats were going to be needed…it was time to just kick back, have a beer and enter tourney-land! The Aussie teams were staying opposite the fields…well done Matt Ward for organising this piece of strategic genius! The two main playing arenas were apparently cemented football areas, so they knocked down the goal posts and flooded them with sand (it definitely felt different to run in than the beach fields). The three beach fields were therefore on the beach (how novel)...and all had a slight incline, which made it interesting!
Funniest/greatest bits:
Winning bronze and winning spirit with FULL POINTS!
Supporting ‘our’ boys (so many proud Qlders) to victory in the final against the Philippines!! Both teams were often playing at the same time during the week, so we didn’t have many chances to see them in action…they were awesome!!
Mica emailing the team the week before saying that she had been in a car accident and may be wearing a neck brace, but don’t worry, she has since played some Ultimate and can still layout…during the week Mica was a layout queen!!!
I had brought some green and gold zinc to get all patriotic, everyone got into the spirit and wrote OI down their arms…but as I walked towards the team I innocently asked why we are all writing ‘HO’ on our arms…we then referred to ourselves as the Aussie Ho’s for the rest of the week and incorporated it into many game chants.
Singing Waltzing Matilda at the top of our voices before our semi-final against the USA and Leanne and Kaz (Karen Palmer) creating a couple of songs for us to sing to the other teams after a few of the games!
The final party night: So many stories, here’s a teaser: food fight, Brazilian reggae band, naked Ultimate, Club 504…
From a personal experience, being the least experienced on the team (and, cough, the oldest), I was inspired beyond belief by how supportive everyone was towards each other. It was clear from the start that we were all there to play great ultimate, improve as a team over the week and were dedicated to having a great time. Leanne King was a fantastic choice for captain and was cool headed and consistently came up with positive strategies for when things got a bit hectic on the field. Apart from being awesome on the field, Notty also got landed with being manager for BOTH teams (and did a brilliant job) and also got some sponsorship from her workplace! The final time the team got together we sat in a circle and passed around a coconut to drink from. The idea was to say something about a person who inspired you throughout the week and pass them the coconut to drink from…we could have sat there for hours, the team really clicked and it was clear that everyone played their all and got inspiration from everyone else…awe bless!
Danielle and Notty have heaps of photos over at Facebook ...
The Women's Team with their US Semi-Final opponents:
The Open Team:
Bit of laying about:
1 comment:
excellent post. maybe we should make this a regular thing actually having some post something interesting from time to time.
Jangles
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