A Quick Look in the Rear-view Mirror - Open Tour 2013

James Burbidge looks back at 2013 from the Open division perspective.

Another year another national championship for Clapham, followed up by another European title. With their sights firmly set on Worlds, and a two-year plan in place, Clapham were a dominant force, even by their own standards. Aside from their obvious additions to the trophy shelf, one of the highlights of the year must have been a strong performance at the Chesapeake Invite where they narrowly missed out on a spot in the final, facing up all weekend against some of the toughest US club teams. You can read more about that weekend here.

Clapham take the European title for the second year running. Photo courtesy of Get Horizontal.

Clapham at Chesapeake: Is the Gap really closing?

Sion "Brummie" Scone, continues this seasons analysis of Clapham Ultimate and their run up to WUCC 2014 in Lecco, Italy. 

Previously, I wrote about how much potential I thought Clapham have in 2013, tempered with the fact that they still have work to do if they want to have an impact at WUCC, to avoid a repeat of their disappointing results in 2006 & 2010.  With this in mind, I watched footage of their games vs Ring & Ironside, to find some insights into the question posed by Pichler recently as to how big the gap is, and to work out whether that gap is being closed by the efforts of Clapham, and if not, what they need to do to achieve their aims of a semi final berth at WUCC.

Statistics:

Firstly, let's look at the stats (note: "Scoring %" differs slightly between O and D lines; it is the number of goals scored / number of points played for O, and the number of goals scored / number of points where the D line forced a turnover for the D line.  The number of possessions required to score a goal are therefore irrelevant for this stat... a deeper look could get into this in more detail!  I wanted to ensure that this statistic reflected the scoring rate where each line had the disc):

The results are pretty interesting.  I posted the scores for Sub Zero's final-winning game in order to provide some comparison.

The Grapevine - 15/08

This week's Grapevine has an international flavour, looking at some US perspectives on Ultimate in the UK and the world...

Clapham take on some of the best club teams in the US this weekend at the Chesapeake Invite. They are also playing in a fund raiser show game against Truck Stop. See Charlie Eisenhood's preview of the Open division.

Iamultimate presents an interesting view from above the recent World Under 23 Championships in Toronto.

Lou Burruss gives his two cents on the various nations' styles post World Under 23 and World Games - an interesting (if brief!) counterpoint to Dave Pichler's recent piece discussing international competition.

Benji provides us with two pieces this week looking at the sport from a wider perspective. The first is a piece on the unique element that Spirit of the Game brings to Ultimate, and the second approaches the increasingly relevant question of the need for observers.

UKU Nationals is approaching - keep an eye out for previews from tSG in the coming week!

Do you read an Ultimate blog that you think should be on here? Let us know! JCK @ tSG