CAIRO – 24 July 2017: Egypt Today met with AUC Mayhem’s former captain and EUPA’s (Egyptian Ultimate Players Association) board member Ahmed Barakat in order to inform us with the Ultimate Frisbee sport.
Barakat known as Dof one of the talented athletes of Ultimate Frisbee in Egypt spoke to Egypt Today about how the game is played, what made him play the sport, the origins of the sport in Egypt, and the accomplishments of the National Team and the AUC Mayhem team.
He started talking about how the game is played and the rules of the game.
Barakat briefly explained the game saying, “The game is played with the field having an end zone at each side and each team is targeting to reach the other team’s end zone.
You reach the other side by throwing the Frisbee to your teammate. Whoever has the Frisbee is not allowed to run and has only 10 seconds to throw the Frisbee. Then you continue to throw it until one of your teammates catch the Frisbee in the end zone of the opposing team. The game is played with 7 vs. 7 with unlimited substitutes. You can change the players at the end of each point with only an exception of changing an injured player during the point. The winner is the team who gets 15 points or the team that has the most points after 100 minutes.
This is the simplest way, the game has tactics and strategies used in order to achieve the objective. When attacking you are faced by the other teams defense who are trying to stop you from reaching the end zone. Moreover, the game is a non contact sport meaning you are not allowed to kick or push the other player. You defend by intercepting the Frisbee while being on air or throw putting pressure on the attacker to make him have a bad throw. “
AUC’s former captain explained the coincidence that made him play the sport.
Barakat said, “I began playing this tournament with a huge coincidence. One of my friends heard of the sport and was going to try outs and I had to wait until he finishes to go home with each other. He told me instead of you waiting, why don’t you go to try outs with me.
I went with him and I liked the sport, which made me continue to practice in order to improve my skills at the sport. Then I was selected the vice captain of the team before being the captain of AUC Mayhem during the whole last year.
Currently, I am not the captain, because I will graduate next semester and we have a policy in the team that the captain needs to be with the team throughout the whole season.
However, I will help the new captain in order to make sure that everything runs smoothly without any problems.”
Ahmed Barakat Holding The Frisbee in the World Ultimate and Guts Championship –Dof’s Facebook Profile
He then moved on talking about when the game was created worldwide, whether or not the game can be used as a living, how Ultimate Frisbee began in Egypt, and whether or not Egyptians can play professionally abroad.
Barakat added, “The game was created in the USA around the 1970’s. It is difficult to use Ultimate Frisbee as a living most people work something next to it. The game began in Egypt at around 2007 when the foreign teachers began to gather and play the sport.
Then some Egyptians saw them play the sport which lead to it being played in Egypt. At first it was a friendly sport played just for fun and later on it became more competitive.
For example, in 2013 AUC Mayhem was founded and the first competitive championship was held.
Answering your question about whether or not Egyptians can play abroad, I think at the moment it is difficult to go and play professionally abroad due to us being considered to be not experienced compared to them and due to the sport not being profitable meaning that you couldn’t use the sport as a living.”
Ahmed Barakat then talked about whether or not there is an Ultimate Frisbee Federation in Egypt and the competitions that the national team played in.
Barakat stated, “Yes, there is a federation called EUPA, which stands for Egyptian Ultimate Players Association. The reason it’s called Ultimate because the official name of the game is Ultimate and not Frisbee. The federation was founded in 2016 and we took the recognition of the WFDF, which stands for World Flying Disk Federation.
We managed to participate in the World Cup; however, we were unable to win any medal due to us lacking experience compared to those who play the sport from a very long time.
Even though we received recognition from International federation, but we still aren’t recognized from the Ministry of Youth and Sports in Egypt. We are trying to get all the requirements need in order to become officially recognized because as of now we fund everything by ourselves. If we managed to become recognized we will be able to get sponsors and advance our facilities.”
Egyptian Ultimate National Team in the World Ultimate and Guts Championship – Dof’s Facebook Profile
Barakat then continued his talk with Egypt Today talking about whether or not there is a league or any national tournaments that are played.
Barakat said, “There isn’t a league because there aren’t a lot of teams. AUC Mayhem was the only team until GUC formed a team a couple of months ago.
However, there are other teams who aren’t University teams or club teams.
They are groups that gather to play in Sporting Club at Alexandria or at a German school in Cairo on Fridays. There are some National Tournaments that are organized but there isn’t a league that has a match played every week.”
AUC Mayhem team – Dof’s Facebook Profile
Barakat then talked about the major tournaments that AUC Mayhem played in and what they are trying to do to raise the level of competition here in Egypt.
Barakat claimed, “After the creation of the EUPA, there were 2 National Championships in which we won both of them. Along with coming 6th in the MENA tournament in Jordan that consisted of 12 teams from the Middle East and North Africa. Also, there was a tournament in Kenya from a couple of months where we won 3 matches and lost 5. All in all, we are trying to improve the level of competition here in Egypt in order to become stronger and develop as a team. We are trying to organize a winter season next year especially after having 7 teams that play the sport. “
Ahmed Barakat is an AUC student who is going to graduate by the end of next semester with a degree in Economics. He is passionate about sports as he used to play many sports during his teenage years and now he is a board member of the EUPA just at a very young age.
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