Still may play at U24s or World Beach Championships if they move forward.
January 5, 2021 by Ravi Vasudevan in Livewire, News with 0 comments
The Irish Flying Disc Association has announced that Ireland will not be attending the World Ultimate and Guts Championships in July of this year. The World Flying Disc Federation asked teams to commit financially to attend the tournament in the coming weeks, but the Irish federation decided that “due to the current situation surrounding COVID-19, it would be to the detriment of the players’ and coaches’ health and safety to attend.”
With the announcement, Ireland becomes the first European country to publicly opt-out of the event.
While the initial announcement from IFDA stated that the country “would not compete internationally in 2021,” Zoë Langsdale, IFDA Public Relations Officer and Ireland Women team member, told Ultiworld that this decision only pertains to WUGC.
“Ireland will enter U24s if it’s deemed viable,” said Langsdale. Ireland is slated to host the WU24 tournament in Limerick in July. The World Championships of Beach Ultimate slated for the fall is also still on the table as a possibility if it is safe to attend at that time.
The Ireland Women won the European Ultimate Championships in 2019 and likely would have been one of the top European teams at a WUGC event this year.
