GONG CLASSIC XIII

Back in May 2025, after our best ever performance at the Bathurst Stampede. (Which we have been attending for a number of years)

 

On the way home my thoughts immediately went to how can we do even better next time. I remembered that I had seen another tournament on the NSW frisbee event calendar, the Gong Classic. A tournament we had never played in before.

 

Soon after, I pushed for us to enter this tournament; it wasn't very hard to convince people to play and we put together one of our most experienced teams yet. It was an exciting new challenge and event after all. 

 

A new logo had been commissioned awhile ago, and plans for new Blue Mountains Ultimate shirts were made to have for Bathurst but that fell through.

This tournament was an opportunity to get them back on track and add our names to the back. They arrived on time, so we were able to simultaneously debut our new shirts at a new tournament. That meant we could really feel like a cohesive team.

 

Fast forward 2 months after I pushed for this tournament, all my organising and planning finally came to fruition (and was a relief to have no more responsibilities haha). 

 

We were on a our way to Wollongong and flying high when we arrived but we were quickly brought down to Earth; when we got smashed by the first team we played against in the tournament. However there was a glimmer of hope when I, the captain broke our drought of points and scored our first point of the tournament and the only point of that game. Proving we can actually get a point against tough opponents. 

 

We were on to our 2nd game after having lunch, regrouping and doing some extra practice. It started much the same as the first game but then we started clicking and our points started racking up. There were some controversial calls but in the end even though we lost we had fought hard, and had a really competitive great game of frisbee. We showed we had the skills to fight toe-to-toe with more professional teams.

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But then our third game, unfortunately we changed field which was facing in a different direction. We couldn't adapt to the change and got smashed again. A somewhat demoralising end to Saturday's games. But we had showed promise on Saturday. 

 

Sunday came, we had a chance to fight for 9th place being in the bottom half of teams. We started well in the morning but with the wind being erratic and us not quite connecting yet. We failed to make a significant dent in the other teams armour but was a fun game. 

 

The 2nd game, we versed a team that had some of my beach frisbee colleagues in it, we were quite evenly matched, just a few mistakes put us behind. Kat gave us hope again with her amazing layout in the end zone. But alas we couldn't catch the other team but was a good game.

 

Even though we had failed to get 9th and then 11th. We had one more chance to gain glory by... not coming last. We were a tad shaky at the beginning but had decided to just have fun and put some Blue Mountains chaos into game. There was the clash of the pink pants at one point, Amir and the player with the pink pants had a slight disagreement but was resolved quickly, their team maintained control of the disc and the next time Amir got revenge by getting the disc from him. There was one 

controversial call, but we moved past that quickly. We were playing well, we were relaxed and our team grasped victory for the first time in this tournament. It brought our spirits up and was a really fun game.

 

We cemented 15th place and achieved our goals for the tournament to gain more tournament experience and to not come last. This was a tougher tournament then Bathurst but gave us invaluable experience, and was a good turnout for our inaugural entrance into the Gong Classic Tournament. We hope to add it to our yearly tournament calendar, so that we can keep improving, getting more experience and of course having a lot of fun.

 

I want to thank all our players, we all tried our best and had fun. A special shout out to our women players, they had a harder task as we had fewer of them. 

 

Oh and a very special thanks to Chloe who was our only guest player from outside of the Blue Mountains. She also was our Spirit Captain, with her enthusiasm for the game and her very nice spirit prizes she was the right choice for this position.

 

Until next year at the Gong Classic, that's about it. Our aim for next time at this tournament is to come at least 14th ;)

 

Elliot xx