Due to the interest in Ultimate Frisbee from the expatriate community which has sparked the local community, Hong Kong received a bid to the WFDF world tournament. The world championships happen once every four years, this time located in Osaka, Japan. The teams must be made up of mostly
local players or ones holding that countries passport with the addition of 4
players that are "WFDF Citizens" or someone who has been playing and
living in the community for 4 years or the lesser, 2-3 spots for players
only playing in the community for 2 years. Because August marked the
two year mark in Hong Kong for me I was allowed to represent Hong Kong
in the world tournament. After receiving last seed in the opens or
Men's division, Hong Kong put it's first team together in history. In
order to do so we picked up some Canadian players with HK passports and a
few other players from around the world. The first time our entire
team met was minutes before the first game against Austria. We joked
about our lack of training together but after not winning a
game the entire tournament we knew that this was a huge downfall for our
team. Not that we didn't have the individual skills to win games but we had no
rhythm or flow on the field being a by-product of never playing together
before. All in all we played Austria, Japan, Mexico, Great Britain,
New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa and Mexico again in a total of 8
games over 5 days of Ultimate. The experience was amazing playing
against some of the best teams in the world (Japan #4 and Great Britain
#2) and representing the nation that I have been living in was a true
honor. It felt weird to be an American walking around in a Team Hong
Kong jersey as we passed our American opponents. I couldn't be happier with how I improved individually and experience I gained even after having a win less tournament.
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