ANALYSIS: Mixed gender teams, democratic rules, no referees — is Ultimate Frisbee the future of sport?
Started in 1981, the tournament has become 'the Olympics of non-Olympic sports', featuring almost three-dozen activities that seem more suited to mucking around in your childhood street than something you'd contest a real-life medal for: floorball, roller-skating, sumo, tenpin bowling, drone racing, tug-of-war, orienteering, snooker, breakdancing, lifesaving, parkour.
The word "frisbee" can be traced back to a late-19th century Connecticut bakery, whose owner, William Russell Frisbie, allowed Yale University students to toss around his empty pie tins after emptying their contents, yelling "frisbie!" to warn each other of the flying metal pan. It's a fast-paced, athletic game, usually made up of two teams of seven, and has one of the lowest barriers to entry: all you need to play is a patch of grass or sand and a disc.
The democratic officiating, mixed-gender teams, and community-driven culture is especially jarring compared with the other sport she plays: AFLW. "Basically, it all comes down to equality and valuing women in the industry, respecting the time and effort they've put in. My belief that that's how sport should look has definitely come from seeing it done in Ultimate, where it really is equal at all levels of the sport."
"I went over to Canada and I had no idea what I was doing, but that experience was completely unbelievable. We went there and came second. And I was like, 'awesome. I've been playing for four months, but I've got a medal from a World Championship.' Off the back of that, I just kept going. I've loved it ever since."
"You can just see the women who come through the sport, the way they get empowered and develop their leadership skills and teamwork and other things that come from playing sport at a high level. Doing that with men and women together, I could rave about it all day." "Coming into the sport, it was quite a nice change. I came from male-dominated sports like footy, rugby, that sort of thing, so it was definitely refreshing.
"I think women's sport is more entertaining and better to watch than a lot of men's sport anyway, so I really like this side of it. We've got a really good community and we're really focused on pushing the gender equity side of things, making sure we're being proactive and not just watching it as it happens."
Not only does it ensure that all participants are educated on the laws of the game they're playing, but it also maintains respectful communication and the positive, collegial culture that the sport was built upon. That's one of the existential questions the sport is asking itself as it applies to be in the Olympics proper after its governing body, the futuristic-sounding World Flying Disc Federation, was recognised by the IOC in 2015.
"I don't know if I'll ever land on an answer. It's sort of the carrot dangling in front of me, and if they did include it in the 2028 Games – which is the big discussion at the moment – that's another seven years invested in the sport, so why not have a crack?"
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