WFDF Releases the 2016 Spirit of the Game Scores by Country

Today the World Flying Disc Federation (WFDF) released its updated list for 2016 of average Spirit of the Game scores by country. Intended to accompany the recently updated WFDF World Ultimate Rankings, this list takes into account scores received by all teams attending recent WFDF World Championships and Continental Championships for Ultimate over the past three years, including the Spirit scores from the 2016 World Ultimate and Guts Championships in London and World Junior Ultimate Championships in Wroclaw. The full list by country in alphabetical order is enclosed to this mail.

"We are pleased to provide tangible feedback to our member associations so that they can work with the athletes in their respective countries to promote and protect spirit of the game," stated Robert "Nob" Rauch, WFDF President. In a self-refereed sport such as Ultimate where all players are accountable to each other, it is important to continuously teach and measure Spirit of the Game. For this reason the Spirit Scoring system was developed. Immediately after a game, all players are involved in rating the other team, as well as their own team, with scoring done from 0-4 for each category. A score of 2 is considered a "Good" score, and the maximum of 4 is awarded for exceptional, excellent spirit. Scores are given on the five fundamentals of Spirit of the Game:

1. Did they know and abide by the rules?

2. Did they avoid body contact?

3. Were they fair-minded?

4. Did they show self-control and a positive attitude?

5. Did they communicate properly and respectfully?

This Spirit Score list is not meant to glorify or shame teams, but should primarily be seen as an educational tool. Countries that have one or more scores of below 2.00, or whose scores have shown a downward trend since the last time this list was published in 2015 (the "Change" column), can use this information to identify the category or categories on which to focus their efforts. They are encouraged to visit the regularly updated Spirit of the Game educational materials. The "Change" column indicates a slight downwards trend across many countries. This may partly be a result of players getting more comfortable with a system which works from a central (expected) score outwards rather than working backwards from a maximum score, as many older systems tended to do.

In the past two years, for example, there has been a focus on identifying and training key players called "spirit captains" on each team, who are experts at the scoring systems and are relied on to liaise with the spirit captains of opposition teams and with tournament officials like the Spirit Director to produce more accurate and consistent Spirit scores.

The list is based on the SOTG scores each country’s team received in each playing division in the following events:

• World Junior Ultimate Championships 2016, WJUC

• World Ultimate and Guts Championships 2016, WUGC

• Asia-Oceanic Ultimate Championships 2015, AOUC

• Pan-American Ultimate Championships 2015, PAUC

• European Ultimate Championships 2015, EUC

• World Under-23 Championships (2015), WU23

• World Championships of Beach Ultimate (2015), WCBU

• World Ultimate Club Championships (2014), WUCC

For more information, please contact:

Volker Bernardi

Executive Director

Tel: +49 (0) 6138 / 90 20 868

Email: volker.bernardi@wfdf.org

Web: www.wfdf.org

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