For the third time in four years, a player has swept the Open Pairs and Open Co-op titles at the FPA World Championships. In 2013 it was Arthur Coddington. Paul Kenny did it last year. Christian Lamred has won his first and second world championship titles in winning both the pairs and co-op events at this year’s Brooklyn, New York world championships.
Unpredictable winds and the threat of rain moved the worlds finals indoors this year, resulting in a high level of play on finals day.
The Champions
Women’s: Lori Daniels/Amy Schiller Open Co-op: Flo Hess/Christian Lamred/Alex Leist Mixed Pairs: Lisa Hunrichs/Matt Gauthier Open Pairs: Christian Lamred/Tom Leitner
New All-Time Bests
This year’s world championships resulted in a number of new all-time bests and set other records up to be broken at next year’s championships in Italy.
Flo Hess, Christian Lamred and Alex Leist become first-time world champions.
Veteran and legend Tom Leitner shatters the record for the most time between first FPA world championship titles and most recent. His first was in 1989. The record increases from Larry Imperiale’s previous best of 22 years to a new mark of 27 years!
Tom Leitner picks up his sixth Open Pairs title. He is only the second player to win six, behind Arthur Coddington who has seven. He has now won with 4 different teammates (Skippy Jammer, Dave Schiller, Matteo Gaddoni and Christian Lamred), which establishes a new record.
Lisa Hunrichs and Matt Gauthier win their fourth consecutive mixed pairs title, tying Amy Schiller and Dave Schiller’s all-time record for consecutive mixed titles. This title is their sixth mixed pairs together, one behind the Schillers’ all-time record.
Lisa Hunrichs extends her lead as the winningest player in the Mixed and Women’s divisions with 19 titles (11 women’s and 8 mixed)
Most people have never seen Michael Clarke freestyle. His style is unforgettable and a distant offshoot of the popular approach to freestyle we see most often. Rather than basing itself on a traditionally-spinning disc or even the nail delay, Clarke’s style is based on third world spin. In Clarke’s freestyle, the disc spins by flipping end over end. It’s an amazing, hypnotic sight. The freestyle community hasn’t seen him in a while, and we remembered him by his flippy disc style. His myth grew to the point where he became known only as Flippy Guy. Imagine the thrill when he visited last week’s FPA World Championships in Santa Cruz. We were even more lucky when he agreed to move off the sidelines and do a demo on the main competitive field.