- A
- A
- A
- ABC
- ABC
- ABC
- А
- А
- А
- А
- А
Flying Discs and Spirit of the Game
New and unconventional sports are gaining popularity among students at HSE St. Petersburg. Many students play capoeira, airsoft, and Frisbee at a professional level. Alina Ponomareva reports about Frisbee at HSE.
Frisbee is a game with a flying disc, which appeared in mid-20th century in the U.S.A. One version of how it originated is that Students at Yale University liked pies from a company called Frisbie. After they’d eaten the pies they had fun throwing the tin-plates they were served on to one another. Frederick Morrison, a military pilot, improved the flying disc, developed the rules of the game and patented his invention as a new sport, which is still very popular.
We spoke to Artyom Davydov, an experienced player in the Sky Pro team, former leader of the Ultimate Frisbee St. Petersburg HSE team and graduate of the HSE master’s programme in sociology about the principles of playing Frisbee. He has been playing for two years.
Artyom Davydov:
Among Ultimate Frisbee players, there are some highly motivated teams that want results and train to perform their best at championships. There are also people who simply come together in teams to have fun and enjoy the game. Sky Pro is made up of the second kind of teams. We have a female, a male, and a mixed division.
The Spirit of the Game in Ultimate Frisbee is the principle at the heart of it that you respect yourself and your competitor. A player should follow the rules strictly, be friendly to their opponent, try not to argue, try not to display negative emotions, and say sorry if they do. After the game the spirit of teams is calculated together with points. And there is an award for the team with the highest spirit. And if a team expresses bad spirit game after game, it might not be invited to the next contest.
— Why is there no longer an Ultimate Frisbee team at HSE St. Petersburg?
I graduated from the master’s programme at HSE and because of my job I just can’t devote time to Frisbee at the university any more. But it would be great if there were other students ready to continue our initiative, who would build a new team and go for new sports highs as we used to with our friendly HSE Frisbee family.
— Please tell us more about Ultimate Frisbee clubs in St. Petersburg.
All clubs in St. Petersburg welcome beginners. Here are some of them: Sky Pro, Teni, JuPiter, Flying Steps, OksiDiscO, Cosmic Girls, and Kolibri. In addition to that, you can play amateur Frisbee on the Field of Mars with members of the Vkonakte group ‘Don’t be a potato, Startupper!’. And everyone is welcome at our Sky Pro club!
Prepared by Alina Ponomareva, 1st year student of Sociology