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FRISBEE CLUB
Kisumu Frisbee Club 1
KISUMU
FRISBEE CLUB
Ultimate Champions:
Kisumu Frisbee
Club
By Felix Ochi
A
t a glance, hundreds of people who pass by the Jomo Kenyatta Sports Ground in Kisumu during their training sessions view them to be among many groups in town, in bid to keep fit by engaging in daily evening exercises. Interestingly, this interpretation is affirmed among the locals by the non-comparable training attires that they don and the object that they play with, a disc which when in motion gives a view of a bucket top.
Kisumu Frisbee Club’s journey to the high profile tournament begun way back in 2015 after Prof. Mike Mcguirk of USA who while working as an expert with Kenya Medical Research Institute (KEMRI) introduced the competitive category of the game in town. The club’s Chairman Mr Josphat Nyataya says before then, they had been engaging in the game but just for fun and fitness purposes.
However, in real sense, this group of 32 players which goes by the name Kisumu Frisbee Club is on an important mission - to make history as the first African club to ever win a title in a World Frisbee Competition.
It is in the same year (2015) that Kenya sent a Frisbee team to the World Champions of Beach Ultimate in Dubai making history as the first time the country participated in such a high profile event.
From July 15 to 21, a team of 15 players from the club, 10 men and 5 ladies will be in Ohio Cincinnati in the United States to battle for the World Ultimate Club Championship (WUCC) title.
Prof. Mcguirk played a major role in the debut of the Kenyan team in the tournament as he organized a major fund drive which financed the one week stay of the team in Dubai during the competition.
Kenya and South Africa are the only countries from Africa that will be represented in the prestigious tournament after bids by clubs from other counties failed to go through.
Of the 14 players who featured for the Kenyan team in the tournament, 8 of them were from the Kisumu Frisbee Club.
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Mr Nyataya attributes their dominance of the Kenyan team in the competition to their then position as the only club in the country which had many local players. “A majority of us found our way in the Kenyan team because then (2015), there were only two Frisbee Clubs in the country, the Nairobi one which had many foreign players and us. We were therefore given the opportunity to field more players for the team,” says Mr Nyataya. And while they did not advance to the quarters, he says the players returned home more experienced, with the Kisumu side embarking on the process of building the club to make it more sustainable for other competitions ahead. Their efforts bore fruits in 2016 and 2017 when they won bronze and silver medals after finishing second and first runners up respectively in the annual Sevens Hill Classic Tournament that took place in Kampala, Uganda. Again in 2017, the club added glory to its name following their fourth place finish in the All African Club Ultimate Championship that was held in Nairobi. Back at home, Kisumu Frisbee has continued to reign supreme, proving to be the most successful club in the country. For two consecutive years - 2016 and 2017, they have won silver medal in the annual Frisbee East African Sand Tournament (FEAST), a competition that is held every Easter
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holiday in Tiwi Beach, Kwale County. Following their superiority in the country, the team has even earned a regional arch rival, the Impala’s from Uganda who have taken home all the FEAST competition titles since the event’s inception in 2015. Buoyed by their sterling performance from the past events, the club decided to take their participation in Frisbee competition a notch higher by working ways of featuring in another world’s Frisbee competition Through the Kenya Flying Disc Association (KFDA) the body tasked with overseeing matters Frisbee in the country, the club
successfully bid for the upcoming WUCC. Every evening of Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday, the players meet at the Jomo Kenyatta grounds where they continuously hon their skills ahead of the competition. According to Mr Nyataya, the team is focused on bringing home the gold medal as they are adequately skilled and prepared having taken part in many frisbee competitions. “We do not want to win silver again, everyone here is craving for the gold medal which we will fight for out rightly. From the preparations we
have put in place all this time round, we are very optimistic of wining gold,� he says. The competition has attracted 48 teams with some of the top ones being Mixtape ,AMP and BFG all from USA, Anchors from Canada, Black Eagles from England, Grut from Netherlands and Sesquidistus from France. To honor the tournament, the team requires Sh 3,000,000 to carter expenses which include player’s fees, securing visas for the players, traveling insurance, accommodation and meals. They have thus embarked on selling team jerseys which retails at Sh 5,000 each and are also set to launch
major fund-drives across the country. Before departing for US in July, the team will participate in the Lake Victoria Grass Ultimate Tournament in April as their last preparation. Currently, the game of Frisbee has started taking root in the country with already eight active teams that have been grouped in Western Conference and Eastern Conference in place. They include the Kisumu Frisbee Club, Nairobi Ultimate, Maseno University Frisbee Club, Masinde Muliro University, Kabarak University Ultimate, One Acre Fund, Egerton University Ultimate and Dedan Kimathi Ultimate. The clubs officials revealed plans to start a league competition of the game in the country. Follow Felix Ochi on Twitter: @ochii_felix
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KISUMU
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