USA Ultimate has moved to a tryout-based Team USA for Worlds.
December 8, 2014 by Charlie Eisenhood in News
USA Ultimate will no longer send the teams that wins the National Championship to represent the United States at the World Ultimate & Guts Championship every four years. USAU announced today that they will now hold an application and tryout process that mirrors what they already do for the World Games and other Team USA events.
This change applies to the Men’s, Women’s, and Mixed Divisions; the Masters Division will continue to send the previous year’s National Champion as Team USA.
From USA Ultimate:
Although a primary goal of these new procedures is to maximize competitive performance of the American delegation at WUGC, several other benefits were identified by the working groups that led to this change. In replicating the process used to pick national teams for other WFDF events, tryouts offer a fairer system of selection for athletes and allows for the participation of a wider geographical cross section of players. This broader reach is expected to engage more of the national ultimate and sporting communities in support of the U.S. National Team, while also providing an opportunity to build community across the highest level players and team leaders in the sport.
The change also minimizes conflict between the quadrennial WUGC event and the regular season of the Triple Crown Tour by removing an international event from the national champion’s schedule, and by encouraging competitive parity by reducing the motivation for top players to migrate to a handful of top teams in a WUGC year simply to access international playing opportunities.
To be eligible for inclusion on Team USA, players must play in the USAU club or college series in both the year of WUGC and the year prior.
Applications and tryouts for the 2016 WUGC will take place in the fall of 2015.
