World Team Discgolf Championship 2022

The 2022 World Team Championship, which took place in Varaždin, Croatia, was a truly strong experience. Although I have somewhat mixed feelings about this tournament, the positive ones are the most prevalent, and they are often so strong that they bring tears of happiness to my eyes. Many of you probably already know how successful the Czech team was, but I’d like to summarize our great experience in this article and tell you what it was like. So let’s get to it.

The tournament took place in Varaždin, Croatia. Where traditionally, few discgolf tournaments are played, one of them is also Eurotour. This year organizers built two 18-hole courses and four nine-hole courses. At the beginning of the tournament, we played matches on nine holes and in the playoffs and later we played the whole eighteen-hole course.

There were a lot of wooded holes on the course, which were not so long, but precision was crucial. Often these were different forest tunnels. Therefore, players whose main strength is distance were a bit out of luck. The course was a bit less differentiated and even less experienced teams had a chance. On one part of the course then, for a change, there were open flat holes that were about 100 meters long and there was nothing anywhere. No trees or OB, just a meadow.

We agreed with the others that we liked the first eighteen better, which was called Course A. We found it better prepared and more fun and varied. We didn’t like the second eighteen – court B – as much. We found it a little bit off, it smelled, it was less cut, the holes were less different and not so interesting and fun. Obviously, I don’t want to look like a hater here, but we agreed on these things with other teams and we just expected a bit better-prepared course from the World Championship. In the Czech Republic, we are used to something different, to a bit more luxury.

Let’s go to the championship

The tournament started for us with a roughly 6-7 hour car journey on Sunday. In the evening upon arrival, we immediately went to play a practice round. On Monday we played two more practice rounds and on Tuesday we had our last one. So we practised each course a total of 2 times. Then on Tuesday night, there was a parade through town that we participated in. We proudly showed the Czech flag in our new jerseys.

We were also photographed at a few places and ended up making it to the meeting. At the meeting the organizers greeted us, the Croatian anthem was played and one group gave us a taste of traditional Croatian music. After the meeting, we went to the players’ party for a while and then rested before the first game.

Wednesday

The very first game we played was against Latvia. In the beginning, many of us could tell that we were quite nervous because we were really on the verge of the WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP! But in the end, we managed to calm down and won 6:2.

In the next match, we played against Ukraine. We were surprised that the Ukrainians didn’t play so badly, and even though we had some weaker moments, we beat Ukraine 5:3. That was quite reassuring and we were happy about it.

In the afternoon we played against a very strong opponent – Australia. They gave us a harder time and despite our best efforts, they beat us 6:2 in the end. But I have to say that I really enjoyed the match with the Australians because they were really nice and friendly, and the atmosphere was very relaxed.

Thursday

In the morning we had another tough match, this time against a strong Estonia. We knew it would be tough, but we went into it with a clear head and with the knowledge that it doesn’t say anywhere that we wouldn’t have a chance. In the end, we managed to get a draw, which was a great success for us!!

For a better position in the table, we needed to beat Ireland in the afternoon, who hadn’t had a single win yet. And we managed to do that. We beat them at 8:0. The Irish were very friendly, and smiling and took the tournament more as a chance to learn something from the others. We had a fun round together.

In the afternoon we had a playoff, in which we entered from the 3rd position. We had a match with another strong opponent – Austria. So far we had played matches only on 9 holes, for the play-off we played the whole 18.

Although we respected Austria, we went into it with a clear head and with the greatest possible effort to beat them. And we actually succeeded in the end!! It wasn’t easy, we were all very tired, but we did it, and we were very happy about it. Because it meant that we would finish eighth in worst in the whole tournament.

Since then, we haven’t changed the line-up and we also decided to play only in the red jerseys because they brought us luck against Austria. And no, we’re not superstitious at all…

Friday

In the morning we had a game against Germany, before which a couple of teams warned us that they were pretty good. Luckily we were better that day and managed to beat them 8:0! And that was another huge success for us.

In the afternoon we had a match against dreaded Finland. We fought and fought… until we managed to get a draw! That meant the MP40 had to go for the sudden death playoff. Lukas Filandr played for us. It was played on hole 1 on the A course, which is a par four. Lukas put his first shot in the perfect position for the approach. He then sent it to about 6m from the basket, while his opponent Tapani sent it into the woods. Tapani then went for it but didn’t convert. Lukaš made his putt and everyone cheered. Especially our Czech team, who pounce on Lukas, celebrating and jumping for joy. Some even cry with joy. The defeat of Finland was very valuable for us. We also realised that we have a medal for sure and that we will be fighting for first place on Saturday! It was just unbelievable.

We shook hands with the Finns and thanked them for the game, and we also high-fived the Estonians, with whom we were going to fight for the gold. We’re going to the finals.

Saturday

D-Day was here and we had a gold medal match. If it hadn’t worked out, we would have won silver. After lunch, we got down to business. We were slightly down from the start, but we didn’t give up and kept going. Although we made some mistakes, it seemed that luck was a bit more in favour of the Estonians. About halfway through the round, it started to rain and our mood dropped. It was hard to concentrate on individual throws in the rain. Everything was wet and slippery.

In the end, the Estonians escaped us completely and won 8:0. We were sorry, but we celebrated because we are the World Vice Champions for 2022! It means a lot to all of us. We didn’t go into the tournament with any particularly high expectations of placing, so this was just a dream come true for us. In total, 25 countries participated in the tournament. We were surprised by how many players congratulated us or crossed their fingers. We were also constantly praised, which was surprising. It was just great.

Summary

I was surprised that the tournament wasn’t as prepared as it should have been. Some things were rather strangely handled by the organizers. For example, we often didn’t know when and where we would have a throw until almost the last minute, and sometimes, even when we knew, it could get pushed back a bit at the last minute. Everything was solved via WhatsApp, which according to the organizers was not obligatory. But the worst thing was that there was never any direct loud signal that the game was about to start. That’s why sometimes there were quite confusing situations, for example, one team knew about the change of the tee time and the other didn’t. During the tournament, it was very hot and the organizers promised water on the court, but sometimes it happened that they simply didn’t refill it. They could have done a bit more with the course too, other than adding competition for the best Spirit of the game, which belongs more to ultimate frisbee than disc golf… In spite of all this, I rate the tournament positively. Mainly because it gave us the opportunity to meet players from all over the world, get to know them and compare our game. Although sometimes it seemed that some opponents were much stronger on paper (e.g. by ratings), it certainly didn’t automatically make them unbeatable. For example, there were a couple of times when we were almost beaten by an opponent we thought would be weaker, and on the other hand, we beat an opponent that was theoretically stronger than us.

In match play, it is always about the fact that every hole is a new beginning and even if one player plays 2 on one hole and another plays 6, he still loses only one point and on the next hole, he can play better. It’s just a matter of forgetting the bad shots, concentrating on really every shot and staying in the present with your mind, not dwelling on what happened. That’s what we’ve mostly done, I think. Our main strength was that we supported each other. In general, I really appreciate our team for the way we treated each other and the great team spirit we were able to build in that short time. I’m very proud of us for what we’ve accomplished. We made history together and we made our presence known. I believe that this is just the beginning for Czech disc golf and it is not the first or the last time the disc golf world will hear about us. Thanks to our captain Honza Studnička and players Petr Mrázek, Petr Striegler, Kuba Veselý, Matěj Vojtík, Marek Šrom, Lukáš Filander, Nikola Moravcová and Martina Vajdová.

In the end, I attach our photo from the ceremony with the medals. Every time I look at it, it makes me soft. It’s just awesome.