A tournament in Forlì…Ah, what a wonderful way to end a magical year in freestyle frisbee… Forlì is an acient city, founded in 188 BC and it’s the birthplace of the famous Renaissance painter, Melozzo da Forlì who was one of the most outstanding fresco painters of the 15th century.

The ‘1st Grand Prix’ event was held indoors in a very big gym with a high quality sound system …Claudio, Marco and Matteo did a lion’s share of the work but had lots of help from friends and family as well. A fairly decent crowd came out for the finals as well – I guess it doesn’t hurt to offer free beer and paninis to the audience. 😉 They did a wonderful job coordinating their first event and the posters, t-shirts and trophies were all very well done…

The event had a very relaxed, non-competitive feel to it and it was great to see so many new players. Claudio Cigna’s girlfriend, Ilaria Aprile has really improved along with the other local Forli-an jammers especially Marco and Gloria. It was also great to see Andrea Dini return to action and he and partner Matteo Gaddoni put on quite a show in the finals hitting a nicely choreographed routine and earning 2nd place. Luca Medri and Marco Prati also had an excellent round but theirs came in the semi-finals. One of the bigger suprises was the team of Matteo Ceresa and Alessandro Berra who came within a few points of winning the b-final. But the Torino team was edged out by Andrea “Alli” Poli and Riccardo Sanna who executed very well though Matteo, Ale and fellow Torino native Jazz took home a special spirit award given by the staff. Clay Collera’ and Claudio Cigna took the title with big moves, nice co-ops and very few errors.

In co-op Claudio and Clay won again this time with Luca Medri, performing a ‘spider man’ routine featuring numerous big air catches and 3 disc work. In 2nd was the spontaneous jam by Matteo Gaddoni, Danilo Torzolini and Tom Leitner (me) – we had some nice indys and flow but also had some drops. Many players played great – of course we all know about Fabio, Clay, Gaddoz and Claudio but players like Valerio ‘Wall’ Occorsio, Paolo ‘Paolosis’ Magni, Luca, Danilo, Andrea Dini, Marco “Cega” Prati, Riccardo Sanna (no relation) and Andrea “Alli” Poli are all improving very fast. And Silvia Caruso showed she’s been practicing her clock game as she jammed effortlessly with clock players in the open division – and only getting a single counter throw in one round didn’t seem to bother her at all.

In the mixed division, Gloria and Clay almost upset the Italian champs Ele and Fabio as they hit most of their co-ops and combos, but Fabiosis and Ele were once again up to the task and were able to execute well enough to win. Though only 4 women competed – 3 other new fem-jammers were playing on the sidelines. (Marty, Ilaria and Arianna)

Congratulations to all the winners (including Matteo who won the ‘spirit of the jam’) and a big thanks to the staff and the locals who made us feel like very welcome guests. Saluti!

– Tom