2014

35th IFPA World Footbag Championships           AKISPHÈRE 2014

WFC14 Freestyle

Here are video previews of the 5 footbag net World Championships finals matches. Complete matches are available on demand here

World Footbag Championships for the first time in France

The RNH footbag club located in Paris took charge when the 35th World Footbag Championships were in danger of not happening.
The tournament was announced late and the crew had to
rush to make it happen. Some huge problems arose when the ceiling of the gym planned for the tourney crumbled. A B solution was found and the competitors from around the World gathered in the city of lights for a week of extra hard competition from July 27th to August 2nd 2014.

Videos in the order that the matches were played:

Women singles net finals

Competitors:
Geneviève Bousquet from Montreal, Canada - Club Aki Québec vs
Piia Tantarimäki from Finland - Club Footbag Finland

Format Best of 5 games to 15 points, rallye scoring

This match was a big cat fight mostly because Piia improved so much over time. She brought Geneviève to a decisive final set, where she had a 10-4 lead at some point. Geneviève then took a crucial time out and played better until the ultimate victory whereas Tantarimäki had a nervous let down.
Bousquet wins: 12-15 15-6 15-12 12-15 15-11

Open singles net finals

Competitors:
Walt Houston, Memphis, TN, USA - Club Memphis Footworks vs
Florian Götze, Frankfurt, Germany - Club Frankfurt Footbag e.v.

Format Best of 5 games to 15 points, rallye scoring

We're in Paris at the 35th annual World Footbag Championships for the singles finals where Walt Houston from Mempis, USA faces Florian Götze from Frankfurt Germany. Flo won the title in 2012 in Poland whereas the US players didn't grab a singles title since 1997. Walt manages to clean up the competition and bring back the title in the land of the origins of Footbag.
Houston wins in 3 straight sets 15-10 15-7 15-12

Women doubles net finals

Competitors:
Maude Landreville + Geneviève Bousquet from Montreal, Canada - Club Aki Québec vs
Piia Tantarimäki from Finland - Club Footbag Finland + Kerstin Anhuth from Frankfurt, Germany - Club Frankfurt Footbag e.v.

Format: Best of 3 to 15 points, side out scoring

This was a rematch from the 2013 finals played in Montreal. This time the german - finnish team did a little bit better especially in the second
game that went to a little bit of overtime.
Montreal finishes on top with a convincing victory in 2 straight sets 15-3 16-14

Mixed doubles net finals

Competitors:
Piia Tantarimäki + Matti Pohjola from Finland - Club Footbag Finland vs
Maude Landreville from Montreal, Canada - Club Aki Québec + Andreas Wolff from Germany - Club Frankfurt Footbag e.v.

Format: Best of 3 to 15 points, side out scoring

Historical moment! This was the first time in footbag's history that a team from Finland won the coveted mixed doubles finals. Well done PiiaTantarimäki and Matti Pohjola who played great especially by keeping the unforced errors to a minimum. Matti Pohjola was very impressive in that department with only 2 unforced during the whole match as well as raking in a good number of unreturnable smashes. The other team composed of Maude Landreville from Montreal, Canada and Andreas Wolff from Germany were handicapped by Andreas's knee injury which made him very far from being as effective as usual on the court. Finland wins it by 15-3 15-6

Open doubles net finals

Competitors:
Arthur Ledain + Greg Lima from Paris, France - Club RNH vs
François Depatie-Pelletier from Montreal, Canada - Club Aki Québec + Karim Daouk from Lausanne, Switzerland - Club Les pieds à Gilles

Format: Best of 3 to 15 points, side out scoring

Another historical moment was recorded as the french team of Ledain and Lima managed to take down big servers Daouk and Depatie-Pelletier.
It happened in Montreal in 1996 and in Frankfurt in 2006 that teams who's seen the tournament come to their country for the first time won the ultimate net title and it's always good for the health of a relatively new sport such as footbag net. Arthur and Greg played without fear and were very spectacular in their spiking. Depatie-Pelletier and Daouk on the other hand could have minimized the unforced errors and they seemed nervous. I'm not sure that they had the best strategy neither. They had a good lead in the second game but they kind of blew it, everybody in the crowd would have loved to see a third set, except maybe the french fans.
Paris wins the title in two sets 15-7 15-13


If you want to see the complete matches don't forget that they are available on demand by

clicking here