I'm in Lecco to watch Alice play for the Australian women's u20 ultimate frisbee team. On Sunday, things kicked off with an opening parade (we didn't know anything about the schedule for any part of the tournament till Saturday - it's Italy!). Hundreds of youngsters turned up in the central piazza and the marched off with an American-style marching band to the downtown stadium where the Italian and Irish women got to play the first game as an exhibition match (it counted).
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| Alice and Molly with other Aussie team members |
The bulk of the tournament wasn't going to be at this stadium but at fields about a 30 minute bike ride out of town. Ex-polo fields that still have a pungent aroma but somehow they managed to fill and grass all the hoof divots.
The girls were in a pool with Colombia, GBR and Latvia. We were seeded third in this pool with Colombia at 1 and GBR 2.
Sadly, on day 1 the girls played in rain and wind and the Latvians came out more fired up and won :(. Day 2 saw them play better against GBR. They didn't expect that they could win this and came close but missed out. Alice was outstanding in this game making several blocks defensively and throwing multiple goals.
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| Setting up the line for a point against GBR |
Maybe I'm not fully objective, but Alice is clearly the best player on our team.
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| Our best player |
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| A bit down after the loss |
After lunch the girls had to play Colombia. This was scarey as Colombia was not only seeded top of pool but number 1 overall. They were awesome. All these little brown girls doing groovy warm ups to music then coming out and running like demons with all of them throwing and catching perfectly. We got thrashed 17- a couple. I think team USA will win this year though, having watched parts of their games.
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| Post-game huddle |
The girls have now dropped to the bottom pool and can play off to win that pool and then play against the losing teams in the top pool for a best possible final position of 9th, I think. Tomorrow's first match is against Netherlands then we have one against Israel in the afternoon.
Posted with Blogsy
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