IFPA Chooses Prague to Host 24th Annual World Footbag Championships
The International Footbag Players' Association, Inc. (IFPA), a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation, has chosen Prague, Czech Republic as the host for the 2003 World Footbag Championships, August 1-3, 2003. This is the 24th year of this event, which moves from city to city throughout the footbag world. This is the first year in the history of the sport that this event will take place in Europe. IFPA is a non-profit corporation, promoting amateur athletics through footbag, and fostering international competitions in the sport, as a healthy alternative sport for a drug-free, athletic youth lifestyle. See footbag. org for more information.
(PRWEB) June 22, 2003
The 24rd annual World Footbag Championships will take place this summer, August 1-3, 2003, in Prague, Czech Republic.
The event is presented by the International Footbag Players' Association, a non-profit corporation working towards the recognition of footbag as an Olympic sport.
Footbag (also known by the brand name, Hacky Sack) is a competitive sport, with two main competition formats: freestyle and net.
Freestyle footbag is much like figure skating or skateboarding, where players perform difficult sequences of tricks with a footbag, in choreographed routines judged by a panel of experts. Freestyle finals will be inside the tent at the the Slavia athletic facility, on Saturday, August 2nd, and is expected to be a sensational, standing-room-only show. (Last year's World Championships freestyle finals were in the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and the event proved exquisitely entertaining to packed theater.)
Footbag net is a more traditional competition format, similar to tennis or two-person volleyball. Footbag net is played with a very small 32-panel ball on a grass badminton court, with a 5-foot net. Players set and spike in unbelievable aerial moves over the net, very similar to the Asian sport of Takraw.
Footbag is played in over 30 countries world-wide, and this event will attract players from the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and of course most European countries, including Finland, Slovakia, Hungary, Germany, Austria, France, Holland, Poland, Slovenia, Russia, Switzerland, and of course, Czech Republic.
Invented in the United States in 1972 by John Stalberger and Mike Marshall, footbag is an alternative sport that has spread world-wide.
Much more information on footbag, and details about the World Footbag Championships, are available on the IFPA's website, http://www. footbag. org/ (http://www. footbag. org/)
Contact Chris Ott, Marketing Director of IFPA, at chris@footbag. org or at +1-707-576-8145, or the World Footbag Championships organizers at worlds03@ifpa. footbag. org, or Tomas Tyrpekl, president of the Czech Footbag Association, and local coordinator, at tms@footbag. cz.
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IFPA, Inc., is a non-profit corporation, promoting footbag as an alternative, healthy sport for youth and adults alike, promoting drug-free athletics and peace through play.
