THE WORLD ON THE BEACH
PAGANELLO 2001

Paganello is the most complete tournament I have had the pleasure of attending. Great teams and great players from a multitude of countries competed on and off the field in a four-day festival of Ultimate bringing 1500 players on 88 teams to Rimini, Italy. Logistically, Paganello is a monster to organize and credit must be extended to Gian Pietro "Jumpi" Miscione, Andre "Rambo" Ramberti, Giuseppe Carpi and countless others from the Cota and Tequila teams spending almost the entire year in advance to make the tournament run as smoothly as it did.

The opening night party was a bacchanalia of grilled "saraghine" courtesy of local Cota Rica players Bibo and Clay and vino rosso poured out by volunteers tirelessly working the "da'magiana" — large 5-gallon jugs of wine. It ended with a 10-minute fireworks display in the sky. Sometime around 3 am the massive beach gathering finally wound down.

Over the next four days the parties would last longer into the night and the tournament's spectacular benefits would continue. First there was the fireworks, wine and food. Then on Friday, every player received a very killer shoulder bag from Eastpak, one of the sponsors. After more drinking late Friday night you could check your cell phone to find a data message of the time and location your team was scheduled to play. On Saturday, the merchandise tent opened and the food and drink continued unabated as several news cameras, including MTV Europe, prowled the sidelines for footage. On Sunday morning, players awoke to find a copy of the tournament magazine at their hotel. And on Monday after all the games had been played, Jumpi gathered the entire Paganello community of players for a final awards ceremony, one in which every team was singled out and called forward to receive a bottle of Lemoncilla.

Drinking beer on the beach aside, pleasantries included some very exciting competition. There is a tournament history in the Open division of no team having won the tournament without first suffering a loss. So towards the end of final pool play on Saturday, defending champions Houston No Tsu Ho got themselves ready by chunking a game. But two other teams also snuck in key losses as London's Under The Influence (UTI) and the Atlanta/Seattle combo Collard Greens went down. The results set up some very good quarterfinal matchups, the best being UTI (supposedly in their last year of playing together) versus No Tsu Oh.

UTI had run hard and fast all tournament -- their late pool-play loss to veteran sandmeisters Mir San Mir notwithstanding — but could they keep it up against the big boys from Houston? Londoners Guy Bowles, Jeff Legg and Dave T exhibited no jitters in facing the Americans, nor should they have -- for Houston was predisposed to letting teams score in the beginning of the game before stepping up big late. UTI obliged, taking an early advantage, but this time Houston's all-star deep game behind Vancouver great Mike Grant, San Francisco stud Damien and Turbo-charger Sean McCall could not erase a four-goal deficit. The game may have been sealed in London's favor at 5-3 when Houston looked to get their groove on. Instead UTI's Richie Smart sprinted downfield and stunned everyone with a mad layout block on the first Houston pass. Easy score. Next possession, Guy Bowles gets a hand-block and the score and the game went to 7-3 in UTI's favor.

Simply put, UTI made the big plays where Houston did not. At 10-6, No Tsu Oh scored two to close to 10-8 and force a cap but that was all she wrote. UTI finished them 12-8. UTI defeated an easier semifinal opponent in fellow Brits Catch22 to set up a battle against another former colonial conquest, Collard Greens from Atlanta and Seattle, USA. Of course, in the Ultimate spectrum, it's England who's been under the American Imperialism and in this finals they fought hard for independence.

Freedom was granted -- but not without a fight. Collard Greens showed some hominy grit and perseverance when it counted and refused to bow out late in the game when UTI was in charge 9-6. Big plays from Per, Jeff Legg and Ian "Sickboy" Perelman had given UTI the edge, but an inspired comeback from the Seattle slew of Sheckie, Jude, D'Arcy and Chris Page brought the game to a fitful conclusion, tied at 11s, next point wins. UTI received the disc and worked it in for the final score with a diving Collard Green just missing the block.

It was that kind of thrilling tournament for Collard Greens, with many games coming close. In their semifinal against Mir San Mir, the Greens found themselves down 8-5 but refused to let the game go, instead battling back behind the good fortunes of D'Arcy, whose luck and skill balanced like Yin and Yang, good and bad, three times in the game (turnover, then getting the disc back for a score). That game also came down to next point wins, but in favor of the Collard Greens.

Britain's best Bliss took home the women's crown with little trouble from a host of pretenders. A stalwart group, Sirens, from Vancouver led by feisty Jennie Craig hoped to wrest away the Beach Ultimate Crown from the Londoners. But they were dispatched in quarterfinals by a team calling themselves Coastal Tendencies, harboring talent from Raleigh/Durham, Los Angeles and even Vancouver. But Bi-Coastal's mix couldn't match the solid semifinals play of one of Europe's stronger teams, the Old Ones from the Netherlands. The Dutch escaped with a one-point win to earn a place in finals against the indomitable Bliss.

Bliss played like a team on a mission all tournament. And indeed they were, seeking to win their third Paganello and lay claim to the Beach Umbrella trophy forever. Led by captain Tara Jewell and featuring stellar play from 6-footer Diana Worman, Yusi Wang and Laura Pearce the ladies, dressed in pleated cotton skirts like they were at Wimbledon, defeated Old Ones easily on center court.

The 1999 winners from Finland, the powerful Maitotytöt (translates roughly to "Milk Maidens") fell to Bliss in quarters while Atlanta's hard-partying Shazam! also fell victim earlier than intended but recovered to place 5^th. Other strong teams included Finland's Villit Venlat ("wild witches"), also from Helsinki/Espoo and winners of the Talking Fish Spirit award, Flying V's from Sweden (finishing third) and Germany's Tank Girls and Shoot From the Hip.

Depending on which pool you were in, one of the following could have been bestowed upon you. If you played Meltdown, the mustachioed comrades from Kiev, Ukraine with the matching 70's Soviet warm-up suits, your team would be treated to a round of Meltdown brand vodka (said so right on the label). Yes, it was real vodka, I had some last night. If you played Hungary's team Paprikas you would receive paprikas, of course, along with several chiles and a strange bottle of Liqueur. Take on Nantes' Les Frisbeurs and drink champagne, defeat Flying Bisch, the newest team at the tournament, and a bottle of Vino Santo was passed around. A game against Houston netted you a"No Tsu Oh" plastic kazoo, while a match with Chevron A.F. ended with a contest requiring a player from each team to don a rubber life preserver and diving fins to see who could kick a piece of fruit the furthest. Playing Barcelona's Crema Catalona or Patatas Fritas meant free playtime with their 4-foot stuffed Potato Head doll, while any time spent with the Brasil team was a guaranteed party.

OK, so the Brazilians (there's an 8-team league in Sao Paolo) only finished 16^th in the Co-ed division — but that's because as usual the competition was fierce. Toughest of all to put down was the undefeated winner, heavyweight champions of World Beach Ultimate, Thrill Ride -- hailing mostly from San Francisco, California, with two very important pickups from Bologna. Yes, perhaps it was the Italian style of Peldi and Epa (Emanuella Argilli) that gave the Americans just the right amount of flair to compete in the heavily European field.

"She basically won our game for us," spoke head carney Margie of EPA after a big quarterfinals win. Indeed, some of the finest plays of the tournament were to be seen on the sidelines of UTI games and EPA points. Great snags and mad layouts helped propel an already talent-laden team (Dom Fontinette, Justin Safdie, Matt Tolcher, Coco, Ozzie, Margie) to the finals against Britain's third (of three) Finals combatants, Poughkeepsie. Poughkeepsie (the name was taken from an Ally McBeal episode) played hard and with spirit all tournament, with the likes of Harry Golby, Paul Atkins, Sarah Davison and Jeff Jackson leading the charge. But in the finals they could never close the gap after Thrill Ride broke and led by two early. The Thrill advantage expanded as the confident team took the ride only upwards, ending with an 11-7 win.

What else can I say about this tournament? Beach Ultimate is a lot of fun and the spirit of Paganello eclipses even the competitive level, which is extraordinarily high (typically the Champion teams from most Ultimate-playing European nations come to compete.) Houston, for instance, was just as gracious and giving in their end-of-game ceremony with the kazoos with a win or a loss.

While getting a bid to the highly-competitive tournament is a prize in itself, there are still spots left open for new teams, like these year's participants from Brazil, Ireland and Florence/Prato's Flying Bisch' — a team of mostly beginner-level Ultimate players, college and high school kids, who formed only four months previous to the tournament.

Four days of sand and partying with teammates and newfound friends from across the globe are not to be missed. Oh — and just to insure you that not everything was hunky-dory, unbeatable, best-ever — the weather was lousy. A chill wind that threatened rain controlled the tournament from day one. Next year, promises Jumpi, they'll have that worked out. Paganello just keeps getting better.

This was written for the UPA Newsletter, commissioned by Jumpi and Paganello.

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