2014 Paganello Results

2014 Paganello
Rimini, Italy
April 18-20, 2014

Pairs Final
1. Balu Major/Fabio Sanna (44.1: A 14.6, E 17.6, D 11.9) [video]
2. Randy Silvey/James Wiseman (43.9: A 13.7, E 18.4, D 11.8) [video]
3. Clay Collera/Andrea Dini (42.0: A 12.7, E 17.4, D 11.9) [video]
4. Tom Leitner/Marco Prati (40.6: A 12.0, E 16.5, D 12.1) [video]
5. Manuel Cesari/Valerio Occorsio (35.7: A 10.1, E 13.7, D 11.9) [video]
6. Pipo Lopez/Fabio Nizzo (35.2: A 7.9, E 16.6, D 10.7) [video]

Co-op Final
1. Larry Imperiale/Randy Silvey/Bill Wright (45.9: A 16.3, E 17.0, E 12.6) [video]
2. Balu Major/Fabio Sanna/James Wiseman (45.3: A 14.7, E 16.9, D 13.7) [video]
3. Manuel Cesari/Clay Collera/Andrea Poli (41.9: A 13.1, E 17.6, D 11.2) [video]
4. Tom Leitner/Pipo Lopez/Marco Prati (41.4: A 12.9, E 15.8, D 12.7) [video]

Mixed Pairs Final
1. Judith Hess/Marco Prati (43.0: A 12.8, E 18.2, D 12.0) [video]
2. Eleonora Imazio/Fabio Sanna (40.6: A 12.3, E 16.6, D 11.7) [video]
3. Anna Merlo/John Titcomb (24.7: A 6.3, E 13.3, D 5.1) [video]

Super Pro: Fabio Sanna

Spirit of the Game: Judith Hess

Continue reading “2014 Paganello Results”

2014 Virginia States

2014 VA States
Fredericksburg, VA
April 12-13, 2014

Final
1. Arthur Coddington/Jake Gauthier/Matt Gauthier
2. Roger Meier/Daniel O’Neill
3. Erwin Velasquez/Jens Velasquez
4. Toddy Brodeur/Steve Scannell
5. Rob Fried/Rodney Sanchez/Jonathan Willett
6. Jay Moldenhauer/Dan Yarnell
7. Tom Lasher/Charles Richard
8. Tim Mackey/Donnie Wallace/Scott Zimmerman (SCR)

Semi A
1. Rob Fried/Rodney Sanchez/Jonathan Willett (26 votes) [video]
2. Roger Meier/Daniel O’Neill (35) [video]
3. Toddy Brodeur/Steve Scannell (54) [video]
4. Tim Mackey/Donnie Wallace/Scott Zimmerman (89)
5. Tom Cole/Jack Cooksey/Jim Herrick (108)
6. Harvey Brandt/Lori Daniels/Gerry Geare (113)
7. Bob Cooksey/Randy Lahm/Dave Steger (121)
8. Paul Mondesire/Lou Sumrall (142)
9. Stephanie Chan/Mark Horn/Sam Kaye (163)

Semi B
1. Arthur Coddington/Jake Gauthier/Matt Gauthier (26 votes) [video]
2. Erwin Velasquez/Jens Velasquez (45) [video]
3. Jay Moldenhauer/Dan Yarnell (73)
4. Tom Lasher/Charles Richard (93)
5. Conrad Damon/Dave Hesselberth (140)
6. Rob McLeod/Hunter Wootten (161)
7. J. Kraut/Bryan Steffen/Ronnie Turner (167)
8. Jon Freedman/Jack Herrick/Spencer Herrick (168)
9. Tobias Cole/Jeff Shelton/Evan Wallberg (198)

The Future of the Freestyle Rankings

In the summer of 1993, I published the first freestyle rankings. First they covered open events, then later I added a separate list for women. Each month since then – and sometimes more often – I have published a new rankings list. It’s time for someone else to lead this project. I will continue to compile rankings through this year’s FPA World Championships. After that, my intention is to step away from the rankings.

I’m excited to see which freestylers are interested in shepherding the rankings through its next chapter. I’m possibly even more excited by how the next team can improve them. The rankings can get better in so many ways:

AUTOMATION

Compiling the rankings is labor-intensive. Lots of data entry and calculations and not enough automation. A freestyler with database skills could simplify the workflow for compiling each rankings list. Flo Hess has done amazing work with the competition spreadsheet and tools to export results into formats for web publishing. It would be great to see a link between his spreadsheet and an automated system.

TRANSPARENCY

The rankings are kind of a mystery for most freestylers. While the process for calculating rankings points is published on the rankings homepage, there could be much more access to information. I’d love for players to be able to drill down from their total points and see the points they received at every event they played. I’ve love for players to be able to see the results of a tournament and how that translates into rankings points. I’d love for players to be able to see statistics and graphs of their rankings performance over their career.

ACCURACY

The rankings are solid. I’ve updated the system throughout the years to reflect the evolution of freestyle and improve accuracy. Below are some opportunities I see for the rankings.

Equalizing Points
We play freestyle in formats that range from individual turboshreds to 3- or more person teams. That creates some unequal situations if the point scale is based purely on tournament placing (1st, 2nd, 3rd). It’s harder to win a turboshred than it is to win a pairs event, if only because winning turboshred means you’ve beaten every competitor, and the pairs winners didn’t have to beat their teammate. 2nd place in co-op means you’ve beaten all but 3 players, which maps to 4th place in a turboshred. I’d like to see a point scale that reflects the relative difficulty of placements across different divisions.

Rewarding Larger Events
When the rankings started, we had official FPA tour events and official status for then-successful WFDF and US Open events. Freestyle has evolved in a more homogenous direction. Tournaments are tournaments. Some are big and some are small, but all are valid. And the FPA Worlds is the big one. Right now, there are some rewards for the number of players entered in an event, and there are rewards in the bonus points for beating lots of players. There is room for improvement here.

I’m in favor of a system that minimizes the categorization of tournaments as important or “major.” The importance or majorness of a tournament comes and goes. I’d love the next rankings system to find other measures to reward importance. One simple approach would be to increase the standard for player turnout. Right now it is 20 players. Raising it to 40 or even 60 players allows tournaments to be differentiated and gives an incentive for events to reach out to new players.

Improving How Multi-Division Events Are Addressed
In the current system, each regular tournament with at least 20 entrants offers the same number of points. If the tournament offers multiple divisions (pairs and co-op, for instance) points are split among those divisions. Points become a measure of performance over the entire tournament. While this has worked fine, one side effect is that it doesn’t reward superior performances fully. A player who wins a deep pairs event but places lower in the same tournament’s co-op event might will probably get lower ranking points than a player who wins a pairs event at a smaller tournament that only offers pairs. I’m not in favor of offering full points for each division. That sets up a glut of points for essentially the same gathering and does not reward the step-up-and-shred reality of one-division tournaments.

One approach I like is to offer points for each division, but for there to be a “drag” on the points with each extra division added. For instance, a tournament with only pairs offers 100% of the normal points. In a tournament with pairs and co-op, both pairs and co-op would offer points like they are separate tournaments, but with a 10% drag. They would each offer 90% of the points of a single-division event. Tournament directors could add as many divisions as they want, but with a diminishing return in rankings points. As always, the tournament director could designate as many or as few divisions as point-earning events as they like.

These are some initial ideas. I’m sure the next team will have their own fresh and inventive ideas. I look forward to seeing how it takes shape.

Wiseman and Hunrichs Top 2013 Year-End Rankings

James Wiseman and Lisa Hunrichs are the year-end number one players on the freestyle rankings for 2013.

Open: James Wiseman

Wiseman linked together strong result after strong result to add to the big points he received in 2012 for winning the FPAW Co-op title. He becomes the youngest year-end number one since the rankings launched in 1993. It was a very tight race throughout the fall among Wiseman, Jake Gauthier, Arthur Coddington and Matt Gauthier. Wiseman took a first or second in every tournament he entered in 2013

Austin: 2nd – pairs; 1st – hat
Virginia: 1st
Jammers: 1st
Boulder: 1st mobop; 1nd pairs
Potlatch: 1st
Worlds: 2nd – open pairs, 6th – open co-op

Though both Gauthiers and Coddington won titles in all their 2013 tournaments, they weren’t able to close the gap. 2014 could be a wild ride as Matt and Jake Gauthier have already made a European road trip and won Frisbeer.

1. Wiseman, James (USA) 1465 points
2. Gauthier, Jake (USA) 1421.5
3. Coddington, Arthur (USA) 1381.25
4. Kenny, Paul (USA) 1347.88
5. Gauthier, Matt (USA) 1335.5
6. Collerà, Clay (ITA) 1315.5
7. Prati, Marco (ITA) 1271.5
8. Leitner, Tom (ITA) 1246.75
9. Cesari, Manuel (ITA) 1214.75
10. Silvey, Randy (USA) 1214.5

Women: Lisa Hunrichs

Lisa Hunrichs is such a dominant force in women’s freestyle that it’s kind of shocking she hasn’t been our year-end number one since 2005. Again, the European dynamic is at play. There are more tournaments in Europe, and more of them offer mixed pairs divisions. The world championships play a big role in the rankings and an even greater one in the women’s rankings. This year Hunrichs won both the Women’s and Mixed titles at FPAW in Santa Cruz, while last year’s number one Eleonora Imazio did not compete and lost hundreds of expired points from her strong play at FPAW Prague in 2011.

1. Hunrichs, Lisa (USA) 1025 points
2. Daniels, Lori (USA) 934.5
3. Strunz, Bianca (GER) 864.5
4. Kahle, Emma (USA) 847
5. Kulisanova, Irena (CZE) 839.5
6. Imazio, Eleonora (ITA) 770.475
7. St. Mary, Cindy (USA) 738.5
8. Powell, Char (USA) 680.25
9. Simon, Ilka (GER) 627
10. Schiller, Amy (USA) 600

Previous Number Ones

Below is a list of all the year-end number one players since the rankings began. The number of ranked players is in parenthesis.

Open
2013: James Wiseman (387)
2012: Marco Prati (367)
2011: Jake Gauthier (369)
2010: Matteo Gaddoni (382)
2009: Tom Leitner (403)
2008: Tom Leitner (407)
2007: Fabio Sanna (416)
2006: Tom Leitner (413)
2005: Tom Leitner (450)
2004: Dave Lewis (435)
2003: Arthur Coddington (342)
2002: Dave Lewis (311)
2001: Dave Lewis (329)
2000: Dave Lewis (318)
1999: Dave Murphy (293)
1998: Dave Murphy (375)
1997: Arthur Coddington (501)
1996: Arthur Coddington (550)
1995: Bob Coleman (545)
1994: Larry Imperiale (469)
1993: Ted Oberhaus (267)

Women
2013: Lisa Hunrichs (61)
2012: Eleonora Imazio (66)
2011: Eleonora Imazio (65)
2010: Judith Haas (52)
2009: Eleonora Imazio (54)
2008: Eleonora Imazio (54)
2007: Eleonora Imazio (47)
2006: Mary Lowry (39)
2005: Lisa Hunrichs Silvey (44)
2004: Lisa Hunrichs Silvey (61)
2003: Cindy Kruger (61)
2002: Judy Robbins (40)
2001: Lisa Hunrichs Silvey
2000: Lisa Hunrichs Silvey (48)
1999: Judy Robbins
1998: Amy Bekken
1997: Amy Bekken
1996: Amy Bekken
1995: Amy Bekken
1994: Gina Sample

123 Four Seasons Hat 2014 Winter Edition

The athletes of 1234 Seasons Hat - Winter 2014 Edition

123 Four Seasons Hat 2014 Winter Edition
Berlin, Germany
February 15-16, 2014

Finals
1. Wu Wunder/Freddy Finner (39,3)
2. Fabio Caruso/Stephan Dünkel (37,7)
3. Philipp Krüger/James Wiseman (34,1)
4. Marc Pestotnik/Andrea Rimatori (33,3)
5. Mehrdad Hosseinian/Gregor Marter (29,7)
6. Tom Goltz/Jan Schreck (29,3)
7. Robert Fried/Bianca Stunz (28,7)
8. Markus Hein/Sascha Höhne (27,8)

Semi A
1. Andrea Rimatori/Mark Pestotnik (34,8)
2. Philipp Krüger/James Wiseman (32,1)
3. Markus Hein/Sascha Höhne (26,7)
4. Jan Schreck/Tom Goltz (26,6)
5. Fabrizio Nizzo/Jean Marie Abel (26,4)
6. Kolja Hannemann/Benjamin Edelmann (25,8)
7. Thomas Nötzel/Ilka Simon (19,7)

Semi B
1. Fabio Caruso/Stephan Dünkel (36,9)
2. Wu Wunder/Freddy Finner (34,2)
3. Mehrdad Hosseinian/Gregor Marter (33,4)
4. Robert Fried/Bianca Strunz (31,7)
5. Tobi Künzel/Irena Kulisanova (30,3)
6. Anton Capellmann/Tim Pattberg (28,2)
7. Jan Sörensen/Fabian Dinklage (new/GER) (26,2)

Frisbeer Cup 2014

Frisbeer Cup 2014
Prague, Czech Republic
February 8-9, 2014

Open Pairs Final
1. Jake Gauthier/Matt Gauthier (45,9) [video]
2. Pavel Baranyk/Marco Prati (44,1) [video]
3. Mehrdad Hosseinian/Randy Silvey (43,5) [video]
4. Ryan Young/Paul Kenny (43,1) [video]
5. Manuel Cesari/Christian Lamred (42,9) [video]
6. Balu Major/Fabio Sanna (42,5) [video]
7. James Wiseman/Tom Leitner (39,5) [video]
8. Florian Hess/Alex Leist (38,8) [video]

Open Co-op Final
1. Paul Kenny/James Wiseman/Daniel O´Neill (46,4) [video]
2. Tom Leitner/Fabio Sanna/Jason Salkey (46,0) [video]
3. Ryan Young/Sasha Hohne/Emmanuele Faustini (40,3) [video]
4. Alex Leist/Florian Hess/Merdi Hossenian (39,4) [video]
5. Matt Gauthier/Marco Prati/Jiří Weiss (38,9) [video]
6. Randy Silvey/Manuel Cesari/Jake Gauthier (37,6) [video]
7. Balu Major/Freddy Finner/Christian Lamred (36,9) [video]
8. Stephan Dünkel/Philipp Lenarz/Philipp Krüger (33,0) [video]
9. Rob Fried/Jan Schreck/Thomas Nötzel (29,3) [video]

Mixed Pairs Final
1. Emma Kahle/Pavel Baranyk (43,8) [video]
2. Ilka Simon/James Wiseman (38,7) [video]
3. Bianca Strunz/Freddy Finner (37,6) [video]
4. Irena Kulišanova/Paul Kenny (36,9) [video]
5. Anna Bragagnolo/Emmanuele Faustini (36,7) [video]
6. Martina Solařová/Lukáš Lacina (29,5) [video]
Continue reading “Frisbeer Cup 2014”

New FPA Judging System Announcement

Dear FPA Members (Jammers),

What started almost 5 years ago has finally come to an end – the revision of the judging system. Freestyle Disc is a sport with many facets and passionate players each of whom have their own perspectives about how judging should work. This, together with a very detailed, thorough and democratic process (according to the FPA judging system changes process rules) and the fact that all members of the judging committee* are volunteers and come from different time-zones contributed to the long process time. I’m a bit sorry for that, but on the other hand I’m also convinced/proud of what we did and I hope that our hard work will result in an improved judging system that meets with the needs of competitive freestyle play. Be assured that we always tried to act in the best interest of the sport and that many decisions made were the best compromise between all numerous valid arguments presented to the committee as well as pragmatic considerations like financial, time and human resources at tournaments.

Based on your initial input in 2009 we had set three overarching goals the last of which we probably accomplished the least due to the many facets and complex nature of Freestyle Disc:

– Encourage diverse, risky and innovative styles of play;
– Make judging more fair;
– Make judging less demanding.

The new judging system will be active 6 weeks after publication/now, starting Monday the 19th March 2014. It will be implemented tentatively for 15 months from that point on. This means that after 15 months, all changes will be reviewed again and one-by-one accepted, dismissed or adapted. The FPA board will form a new committee for this. Please collect your feedback about the new system for the 15 month implementation time-period and share it when the FPA board asks you to do so (of course, you can start discussions anytime and anywhere before this, but then there’s no guarantee that your thoughts will be considered for the review in that case).

The hyperlinks below lead you to the new judging documents and explanations about them (I recommend to read the explanations first!). Please note that the format, numbering and wording of the documents (but not the content!) is still subject to changes until March the 19th. I wanted to post them quickly, so you can read them before Frisbeer in Prague and ask me questions there. The explanations are based on a proposal for changes to the previous judging system that the committee had published on Shrednow.com in 2012. Jammers had the opportunity to give feedback to this, based on which the committee accepted, dismissed and fine-tuned their proposal. The results were then accepted by the FPA board (majority vote per item):

Explanations about the judging system changes, including:
1. Artistic Impression
2. Difficulty
3. Execution
4. The Bonuses
5. Crossing out high and low scores
6. Judging Education

All explanations as a PDF file

The new judging documents:
Judging system manual (PDF)
Judging sheets (XLS)
Variety checklist (PDF)
Difficulty mp3 audio files (3 minute | 4 minute | 5 minute)

* Many thanks to Lori Daniels, Claudio Cigna, Rodney Sanchez and Jan Zahradnicek for all those endless hours of dedicated and competent work. It was really a pleasure working with you!!!
And thanks to Arthur and the FPA board for their support, too!

Best regards,

Philipp (a.k.a. Sleepy Jammer)