Ultimate Frisbee - A comparison between Germany and Scotland (PDF)

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject Health - Sport - Theory and Practice, grade: 62%=2,0, Edinburgh Napier University, course: Scottish Culture and Society, language: English, abstract: This report is about the sport "Ultimate Frisbee" which is not known so well as for example soccer or rugby. However it is played all over the world by a lot of people, mostly students. In this essay there will be some general facts about Frisbee and a comparison between the sport in Germany and Scotland especially between my hometown Leipzig and Edinburgh.
In 1968 Joel Silver, who nowadays is one of the most prolific and successful producers of motion pictures such as the "Matrix" trilogy, introduced his idea of Ultimate Frisbee to the Columbia High School student council in Maplewood New Jersey, USA. In the next year the first game was played between two groups of students. The first and second sets of rules were written in 1970 by Joel Silver, Buzzy Hellring and Jon Hines. The first organised tournament, The National Collegiate Championships, was played on April 25th in 1975. Eight teams took part in a tournament in Yale. In 1983, the first true World Ultimate Championship was held in Gothenburg, Sweden. The European countries were represented by national teams.
In 1989, ultimate was shown as an exhibition sport during the World Games in Karlsruhe, West Germany. In 2001, ultimate was included as a medal sport in the World Games in Akita, Japan. Six countries were invited to compete based on their finishes in the WFDF 2000 World Ultimate Championship in Germany. Canada won the World Games gold medal with an overtime victory over the United States.
Ultimate is now played by an estimated 100,000 players in over 40 countries, with the Ultimate Players Association in the US having over 13,000 members. The 2002 WUCC in Hawaii was the largest Ultimate meet to date, with over 2,300 players and 120 teams from 24 countries participating.