Finals Day

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Masters:
Gold: USA
Silver: Great Britain
Bronze: Canada

Mixed:
Gold: USA
Silver: Germany
Bronze: Spain

Women:
Gold: Great Britain
Silver: USA
Bronze: Australia

Men:
Gold: Australia
Silver: Philapeans
Bronze: USA

The tournament was sooooo well scheduled. They did have 3 years to plan it, so go them! The next Beach Ultimate Worlds are in France in 4 years, so they'll probably be well-run too. Game on for an hour, game off for an hour, game on for an hour, etc. Everyone had lunch at the same time, conveniently at the hottest part of the day. Finals day was finals only each at a different time so they could all be played on the stadium field and so that every team could watch all of them. The Masters played first at 8:00. The Mixed team at 9. The Women at 10 and the Men at 11:00. All of the games were sensational!!!

In our game, we were trailing Germany the entire game. At this point, losing to Spain the day before was the best thing that ever could have happened to us. Up until that point, our team was so comfortable being ahead that the mental side of the game hadn't really become an issue. To Spain, we realized our mortality and were prepared when trailing to Germany in the finals. We had already known what it was like to be behind, so we didn't let it affect our game the way it did in the Spain game and we were able to tie the game up with 2 minutes left of play. With time running out, we made a long shot pass to score and be one ahead when time was called. Since we were only one ahead with time called, we had to win another point to win by two. If we lost the point and it went back to being tied, then the next point would be Universe Point. Whoever wins that point, WINS. Not wanting it to come down to Universe Point, we were on the line throwing the disc to the offense. After two catches on the Germany team, someone laid out and got some rediculous D, which gave the disc back to our possesion. After two passes, Arnie had the disc right outside of the endzone. The endzone was swarming with US people trying to get open and the German team swarming to cover us. Carla, Arnie's girlfriend, was just standing out of the lane directly behind Arnie's mark. With a lean, an inside-out flick and a fall, Arnie passed the disc straight into Carla's stomach. Catching the disc alligator style without even moving, she slow motion looked from the disc in her hands to the charge of US team members charging the field and jumping on each other. Jumping up and down for a few moments, we tried to compose ourselves enough to shake hands with the German team, huddle up with them and share our gifts and cheers. Our cheer, however, was not to be shared in private. Relearning the German drinking song, we changed the words a tad and prepared the German team right in front of the crowd, between the Women's game's point. Out we belted it in German! After a few verses, they joined us on the choruses and we all sang together! Good times. Good times.

Giant trays of beef and chicken skewers, a Great Britain defeat over the US and some jersey trading later, the Men's final between the Philappeans and Australia began. Now, the Philappeans guys stole everyone's hearts, but there's no way you can cheer against the Aussies. So there were Phil-A-PPEANS cheers going when they did something good and "Aussie Aussie, OI OI OI" cheers going when they did something good. I proposed that if the Philappeans won, that everyone rush the field and lift them up. They were playing with only 2 subs and no sand socks the entire 5 days. Incredible. It wasn't meant to be though. The Aussie's pulled it off and the medal and closing ceremonies began. They started with the Master's Division, announcing all of the positions, then awarding the medals, the first place trophy and the MVP awards for most Ds, most assists, most goals and overall most valuable player. Mixed was next and while they were annoucning the teams from 11th place, Jannine, Carla and I got a pair of bright green shorts, some fabric pens and went to town drawing pictures, flags and thank yous all over them for Patrick, the Tounament Director. When Spain was awarded their bronze medal, we finished up the shorts and lined up to cheer Germany when they accepted their silver. Callng us up for the gold, we all lined up and had Patrick stand in front of all of us facing the audience. Caught completely by surprise, Jannine and I each grabbed a shorts leg and pulled down with all our might. In one fell swoop, we all quickly found out that Patrick wasn't wearing anything under his board shorts in front of 400 people and national Brazillian Television. With a shrug, Patrick accepted his new shorts and put them on to model them off. HA! Lining up to get our medals, we, one-by-one, walked up to David, our captain, holding the trophy, kissed it and leaned over to get our medals. When we had all recieved ours, we went behind the stand and to take off the lid of the trophy. It was a glass case with the figure of a frisbee player in it. Around the base was sand from the Portugal
fields back in 2004, so we each took a handful and poured in sand from the Brazil games in 2007. Very ritualistic and very sentimental...

The women went next and the same girl on the US women's team, Tucker, won every MVP award! After the Men got their medals, all of the MVP awards were won by a different member of the Philappeans team, which made all the sense in the world. They deserved every bit of it.

After a giant US team picture with all the divisions, the entire tournament gathered up in a giant circle that enveloped the ENTIRE stadium field. We then played a children's patty cake game all in sequence then broke to all bring our stuff to the fields to dive into the ocean. There were hundreds of people in the warm turquoise sea! playing shorts and sports bras, discs flying everywhere and people running down the beach with bags of beer, tossing it to whoever shouted the loudest. After a lot of swimming, laying out for discs in the waves and drifing through and away from all the crowds... slowly everyone left the ocean to get cleaned up for the last party of the tournament.

A bunch of the US team went to Foco Bear for dinner, but Erol, Sunya, Grant and I chose to explore Super Pizza. A fast food pizza place with a fenced in outdoor playground! We didn't get in the ball pit, but those kdis sure looked like they were havin' fun! Before meeting up with the rest of the team, we went to the ice cream store where you get a cup or a cone, fill it up, then get charged by the weight!

Joining up with the team, we waited for ages for our check and started to make napkin sculptures. The best, by far, was Xtehns. The glass, napkin, tongs sculpture somewhere on this page. Everett was the last one on my team to sign my sarong and chose the middle of the tile floor to do it on! The permanent marker went through! Oh well, they were taking forever with our check and I was anxious to get to the party, so maybe they deserved it...

The last party place was full, so they we all kind of migrated down the street to another quiet bar after bar after bar. Got some important signatures on the surong and had to say goodbye to a lot of the US men's team who had to leave that night to go back to the States, including Jeremy :-(. Eventually, we ended up at this pretty low key loud place. Lars, Ken and I played tripple wing-man for KrisAnn and this Canadian guy and won the party by sending off the Austrians in their taxi with a little rhyme we came up with. HA! We then hopped on the two bikes and sang our way all the way back to the playig fields. It was about a 25 minute bike trip at 5 in the morning, but with a stop at the christmas tree at Ponte Verde and watching the city of Maceio never sleep, we made it to the fields. I ran a victory lap around the field and we all just meditated in the oncoming twilight. Ken and I stayed up for the sunrise and then hit the hay for a few hours before our mystery excursion up to French Beach...

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Photos

Lars, me and Kenbrah
on the bike ride from the party to the fields at 5 am