Photo by Lars Åke Vinberg
Over the past weekend (Nov 3-4 2018) the Bay Area freestyle crew hosted the Golden Gate Shred 2018, freestyle Frisbee hat tournament. 16 competitors and even more friends, family, and jammers descended on Ocean Beach, San Fransisco for a fun a time and to test their beach jamming skills.
The competition took place on Saturday. Players where ranked into “A” and “B” groups. “A” players names were put into a hat and B players drew the names to form teams. After a 20 minute to warm up the teams then showed their best moves to random music for 3 minutes. They were judged using the standard FPA categories.
The large volume of hard packed sand made up for the light wind, giving teams plenty of room to run. Making the finals were the teams of Art Viger & Jan Schreck, Jake Gauthier & Johnny O’Malley, Arthur Coddington & Jim Dodelson, and Pavel Baranak & Scott Weaver.
What a treat to see Art Viger, former World Juniors freestyle champion back on the field. He and Jan both hit some tasty moves, with Jan doing the outer rim delay like no on else can and Art hitting moves as if he never quit playing. Jake and Johnny had a nice connection, hitting several passes and big catches. Arthur and Jim stepped up the technical skills hitting multiple spinning combos and some nice, close up center delay exchanges. None of them could out do Pavel and Scott. They definitively won in all three categories, making great catches, multiple spins, technical skids and turnovers, and quirky combos to seal the victory. I must say, Pavel is having an amazing year; FPAW, Beach Stylers, EFO, and now Golden Gate Shred.
The rest of the weekend was filled with sun, kind wind, great friends, and the kind of fun that can only be had at freestyle Frisbee gathering. Thanks to Pavel, Jan, and Arthur for hosting! We hope to see you back on the beach in 2019. Full results are below:
Photo by Lars Åke Vinberg