Torneo Eterna Primavera: TEP Medellín 2009

TEP Medellín 2009 will be an impressive tournament. TEP is the biggest thing Colombian Ultimate has ever organised. It is effectively a Pan-American championships with teams coming from Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Canada and the US. It will be one of the best tournaments of the year, anywhere.



The Institute of Sport and Recreation, Medellín, is investing some serious funds into the tournament. These funds are supporting the travel and accommodation costs of Furious George, Traffic, Sockeye and Riot.

I stayed at the apartment of Mauro Moore, the TD, for a few days last month, and he has been working on this tournament since about March. There are mountains of discs, rulebooks, jerseys, cones and more, filling one of his rooms.

TEP is more of a gala event than just a tournament. Along side the main three-day ultimate tournament are a one-day mini-hat tournament, a three-day guts clinic, a three-day guts tournament, and the first Pan-American WFDF congress. A lot of things are on the scale of a Worlds or World Clubs tournament.

The venue for the ultimate is Unidad Deportiva Atanasio Girardot, the premier sporting complex in Medellín. Selected ultimate games will be broadcast live on TeleMedellín, a local TV station.

Additionally, in the week prior to the tournament, there is an academic program. This will involve seminars, forums and training sessions for new and experienced ultimate players and teams. There is even a workshop on ultimate photography, presented by the experienced Scobel Wiggins. I have been invited to contribute to some of these academic events, including a forum on international experiences of ultimate and community transformation through ultimate. That last topic may not mean much in a Western country, but in a country like Colombia it has relevance.

The ultimate starts on November 26th; the academic program on November 17th.