Solklar on the road to WBUCC

In February 2024, Solklar had a meeting with all interested players and decided to send a team to WBUCC, the biggest Ultimate Frisbee championship on beach for clubs worldwide.

Since then, Solklar players are working out even harder to prepare for great games on a big, international stage. Finally, 15 Solklarians were chosen to have the honor to travel to Portimão, Portugal in October 2024 in order to represent our club as the only Swedish team in the mixed division.

As the participation at WBUCC requires a very high Ultimate level, but should also help Solklar FF to develop, a concept was created that combines the distribution of responsibility, the integration of less-experienced, but highly motivated players and the support by external, experienced players with a Solklar background. The positions that we set for the team are 1 playing coach, 2 captains, 3 spirit captains, 4 development spots and 4 people not living in Stockholm (anymore).

Beside regular beach practice at Gärdet and intense individual workouts, Solklar was playing the first preparation tournament "Sandslash" in Dębki, Poland, just after the summer break. We were able to test the (spirit-)captains concept, build up connection within the lines and buddy groups and work on our team identity. After 2 sunny and 1 stormy day on fantastic Polish sand, 8 high-intensity games including 2 universe points and 4 wins, we finished 20th out of 36 teams, a solid performance giving the high level of the tournament.

Only one week later the Swedish Beach Championships took place in Halmstad, organized by Solklar FF. Seven teams from Sweden and one Danish team participated, including Solklar All Stars and Solklar Also Stars, the almost complete WBUCC gang. After some struggles with two losses in the pool phase, the team kept the heads high and won the quarterfinal as an underdog in a rematch against Uppsala. After a tight loss in the semis there was only one chance to win a medal left. Due to a strong sideline support by all Solklarians, a great mental performance and a racket-like start, Solklar Also Stars beat Frövi and won bronze! A big proof that all the individual and teamwork paid off and Solklar can keep up with top Swedish teams. Congratulations also to Solklar All Stars winning Spirit together with Akka! A big thanks to all the players from both Solklar teams for helping with the organization and enabling the tournament to run smoothly the whole weekend!

With a lot of highlights in our libraries and tons of positive energy we are now looking forward to playing at WBUCC in only one month!

written by Malwine Lühder

one of the Solklar Captains for WBUCC