HKUPA 2008 Pan-Asian Ultimate Tournamate "Enter the Dragon"

Last weekend, I participated in my first real international Ultimate Frisbee tournament. I had played in a couple of HAT tournaments in Thailand, but this tournament had teams, not just players, from a lot of Asia's major cities (Beijing, Singapore, Shanghai, Manilla, etc.)

I played on Hong Kong's 2nd team, the Star Fairies (a spoof of Hong Kong's famous Star Ferry). We played in the lower division and got off to a great start, beating Kamagong (a mix of players from the Philippines, China and Korea). We lost our second game on the last point to Beijing Bang, whom we should have beaten. After that, we were outplayed or over-matched in the rest of our games, including a sound loss to Kamagong, who we had already beaten. Alas, young Filipinos stay young and fast, and old men get older and slower each day.

This photo was of a game earlier in the tournament, but it proved to be a foreshadowing of the finals, which featured Beijing Big Brother (white) and Manilla's Sunken Pleasure (orange). Sunken Pleasure had what seemed to be an endless supply of young, tan, fast and skilled players dressed like construction barrels which proved to be too much for the wily team from Beijing.

I managed to snap a shot of an amazing play called a "greatest". It is when a player is chasing down a disc that is going out of bounds or through the endzone and the player jumps into the air and in one quick motion, catches and throws the disc back into the field of play for another player to catch it. This young player manage to execute the first half of that play (as seen below), but unfortunately, an opponent snagged his improvised throw. Still it is a remarkable and difficult play to make.

One of my teammates, Bee, sporting his 'stache.

And a lot of thanks and praise to this young lady, Janice, who put the whole tournament together.

We had an Enter the Dragon tournament party on Saturday night. Everyone was supposed to dress up in something that matched the Kung Fu inspired theme. Here are two of the guys from Hong Kong Junk reenacting a scene from the movie Enter the Dragon.

Um... er... I don't really know what the Flash has to do with Kung Fu or Bruce Lee, but it was quite comical seeing him at the party. FYI, Corona appears to be the drink of choice for the speedster.

(Check out the gold shoes)