World flying disc distance champion “Frisbee Rob” McLeod will compete at the Richmond event. (Photo courtesy Rob Mcleod/Rick Lebeau)
‘‘A flying disc is what a ball wants to be when it grows up,” says Rob McLeod. “You know what a basketball, football or soccer ball can do, but with a flying disc, there are so many more possibilities.”
McLeod — aka Frisbee Rob — is one of the athletes slated to compete July 8-13 when various Richmond-area parks and fields host the 2019 World Overall Flying Disc Championships. The Alberta, British Columbia, native is the current world flying disc distance champion — keeping a spinning saucer aloft across two football fields — and the four-time reigning champion in the “self-caught” competition.
McLeod also sits on the Overall Committee of the Colorado-based World Flying Disc Federation, which sanctions this and other major flying disc sports. “I like to help people by comparing the events in the [championships] to sports they know, like the accuracy competition. It’s not unlike a three-point shooting contest in basketball. Disc golf is exactly like golf, and the distance competition is not unlike a long-driving contest in golf.”
“The competition is best compared to a decathlon or heptathlon,” says event organizer Jack Cooksey. “There are seven different events with individual skill tests, and two of the events are partner events.” Held every other year, the World Overalls, with men’s, women’s and junior events, last took place in the United States in 2011 in Fort Collins, Colorado.
A multiple flying disc champion and the head of the federation’s Tournament Organizing Committee, Cooksey says that it makes sense to hold the competition here. “Disc golf and ultimate [Frisbee] are popular pastimes in Richmond, and Virginia has its own legacy of disc sports because some of the earlier world champs came from Virginia, like Scott Zimmerman, from McLean, who was overall champion eight or nine times. I kind of emulated him as a kid.”
Fredericksburg has long been the host of the Virginia State Flying Disc Championships, held in April. It was also where the U.S. Open Flying Disc competition convened in 2014. “I participated when the [U.S. Open competition] came here,” says Fredericksburg resident Paul Cymrot, a 44-year-old who has thrown discs for sport for 20 years. “This year, I’m bringing my 11-year-old daughter to Richmond because she wants to compete in the junior girls’ contests.”
(From left) US Open Self-Caught Flight champions Tobias Cole (junior boys), Diana Elsner (women’s champion) and Jack Cooksey (men’s champion) after winning their respective titles in 2016 (Photo courtesy Jack Cooksey)
When Cymrot first started competing officially, he only participated in a few select events — distance, self-caught, etc. “Now I do them all. I’m not great at any of them, but that’s not really what it’s all about. You’re competing against yourself in most of these, and it’s all about trying to achieve a personal best.”
Flying discs are invading Richmond at a time when the sport is finally enjoying mainstream exposure.
“Ultimate and disc golf can now be seen on ESPN ‘SportsCenter,’ “ Cooksey notes, adding that, in 2015, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recognized the World Flying Disc Federation, clearing the way for potential disc competitions in future Olympic games.
More than 100 participants are slated to come to Richmond for the competition — players from Canada, Sweden, Taiwan (presented as Chinese Taipei), Uganda, Israel “and a whole bunch of dirty Americans,” adds Cooksey, a former editor-in-chief at Richmond magazine who now contributes as a freelance writer and editor. To accommodate all of the throwers, event planners have scheduled contests in different locales across the region. “Finding fields has been a challenge. Richmond doesn’t have one location where you can do all of these different kinds of events,” he says.
The competition takes flight on Monday, July 8, at the Richmond Strikers’ West Creek field in Goochland County, and subsequent days will see action at Forest Hill Park and Huguenot Park. Disc golf will be played at Bryan Park on Wednesday, July 10, and double disc court — sort of like doubles tennis but with two discs going at once — will be played at Huguenot Park the next day. Weekend competitions are slated for Virginia Commonwealth University’s Cary Street Field.
“To score in the [World] Overall, you have to compete in at least four of the individual events,” says McLeod.
“The competition is best compared to a decathlon or heptathlon.” —Jack Cooksey, event organizer
Things are indeed looking up for flying discs, but there’s still a perception that throwing them is a pastime, not a sport. McLeod says that when Wham-O, the makers of the trademarked Frisbee, controlled the market, variety was limited. “People would buy Frisbees that couldn’t really fly very far, and people ended up thinking they weren’t very good at it.” Today’s professional discs, many designed by player-owned companies, go farther, cascade higher and are easier to control.
There’s also the relaxed, self-officiated nature of it all, Cymrot adds. “This started as an outsider’s sport, played by people who were not jocks or frat boys, it was a sport that kind of invented itself, started by people who were just having fun.” That’s still in its DNA, he adds. “I think that the more people come and see it, the more they’ll love it. And there’s nothing here that is so complicated that someone picking up a Frisbee for the very first time can’t go and do themselves the very next day.”
