Next weekend will see the 17th edition of an international Ultimate tournament in Brugge, Belgium: Tom's Tourney 2009 or just TT. The 17 editions saw 11 winners, with the Red Lights from Amsterdam dominating the hall of fame:

4 victories

• Red Lights (Netherlands) in 1996, 1999, 2001 and 2002

2 victories

• CUSB La Fotta (Italy) in 2007 and 2008
• Iznogood (France) in 2000 and 2003
• Dutch National Team (Netherlands) in 1994 and 2000

1 victory

• Cota Rica (Italy) in 2006
• Ultimate Vibration (France) in 2005
• Fruehsport 0,4 (Germany) in 2004
• Violently Happy (United Kingdom) in 1998
• Tartarus (USA) in 1997
• Fluid Druids (United Kingdom) in 1995
• XLR8RS (Belgium) in 1992

TT is the 8th featured tournament on ffindr, after the Boracay Open (Boracay, Philippines), Lei-Out (Los Angeles, USA), Disco Volador 2006 (Bogota, Colombia), Coman Fruta Cabrónes (Tenerife, Spain), UPA Championships (Sarasota, USA), European Ultimate Championships Finals (Paris, France) and the Monkey Foo Tournament (Bourg d'Oisans, France). Tournament director Glenn kindly accepted to answer the following seven questions, read on for some interesting insights on Belgium's premier Ultimate Frisbee tournament.

1. How and when did everything start? How did the TT change and evolve compared to the early 1990s?

It all started in the summer of 1991 when we first thought about organising our own ultimate tournament in Brugge. We looked for a good location, a good date, and accommodation. The very first international ultimate tournament in Brugge was held in the weekend of 2 and 3 May 1992. We had 9 teams coming from Belgium, France and Germany. XLR8RS was the first winner. In 1993 registrations didn’t come in as expected so we decided to cancel. After we cancelled we had several teams still wanting to come but it was too late, so no tournament.

In 1994 we tried again on a different and bigger location with 5 fields. We had 20 teams, which was very much ok.

Then in December 1996 Tom had his motorcycle accident. We decided to name our international tournament Tom’s Tourney. The tourneys of 1995 until 2001 were all played on the old location with 5 fields, so 24 teams was a maximum.

Because Brugge was the cultural capital of Europe in 2002, we had to find another location because the fields were being used as a parking… We moved to our current location which was a good decision because now we had al lot more fields. It’s more difficult because the fields are being used by several soccer teams, but since we have good support from the city we are able to use all the fields.

We had some more changes: in 2004 we started with a separate ladies division with 8 teams, in 2006 we changed the format to a 3-days tournament, in 2008 we split the open division in a first and a second division.

2. What is the biggest hurdle to take during the organisation of the event? Are there any especially difficult problems to solve?

For instance taking care of the schedule, this is a very laborious and time-consuming job. A couple of years ago I created an automatic excel-sheet to make the filling out of the scores easier. All you have to do is fill out the results, and all the tables are automatically filled out and rankings are made. I’m quite proud of this system, but it was a hell of a job ;-) Since I first introduced this system the format changed a couple of times, so it also took a lot of time to change the excel-sheet. But since it saves us lots of time at the tournament it’s worth it !

And then the last couple of weeks it’s hoping that no teams cancel. We had drop-out in the ladies division last week, and for now we didn’t find a replacement team. It’s simply too close to TT to get organised for that backup-team.

3. How about seeding and the format? Is having two different Open divisions a good choice to respond to a wider range of players? How about a mixed division?

For the format, we always try to have a multiple of 4 in each division, but the last couple of years we always had some drop-outs at the last moment ... we do think it’s a good choice to have 2 open divisions. When we had 1 open division, the games on day 1 were too hard for the weaker teams and too easy for the strong teams, so in a 2 days tournament that wasn’t so good. Since we now have a 3-days tournament with 2 open divisions all games on every day are important. This year we had 96 registered teams for only 52 spots, so we think teams like the format too.

We don’t have immediate plans to set up a mixed division. In the second division, already several teams are mixed. And those are combined with less strong male teams.

The seeding isn’t easy as you know. We do this with a couple of players and try to make it as good as possible. Then we also try to divide the teams from the same country in the first round groups.

4. How do you think influenced the TT the local and Belgium Ultimate scene?

I think it helped Belgian ultimate grow: we try to have as many Belgian teams as possible, so I guess it’s a very good thing for Belgian teams being able to play many hard games against very good teams close to home. Other teams get to know the Belgian teams so they also have a bigger chance to enter tournaments abroad probably.

5. It seems that TT is just getting bigger and bigger, is this wanted and supported or does this just happen and you try to adapt as good as possible?

This is wanted and supported, but for the moment we reached the maximum possible. With the 11 fields we have, 52 teams is the maximum. The city has plans to add 2 more fields at the same site, but we don’t know when those fields will be ready, it could take up to 2 years and they haven’t started yet ... Once those fields are ready we could add 4 or 8 teams.

We already wanted to have 52 teams last year but we had some drop-outs in the ladies division so we ended up with 49.

6. As far as I know, Belgium has a quickly growing, fun-loving and spirited Frisbee community. What kind of people play Ultimate in Belgium?

The spirit is great, at Paganello only 3 Belgian teams were there but 2 of them managed to take the spirit back home! All sorts of people play ultimate, but several teams have a very good youth-training program, so a lot of young players entered the scene. The average age from all our players in Brugge is 23, we have 33 players younger than 20!

7. How does the selection process work for TT? What are the criteria to get in?

Needless to say it’s a tough job. We have some criteria: finalists of the last edition, spirit winners from the last edition, winners from the last 5 years are certain to have a spot. Then the real work starts ;-) we try to have as many countries as possible; we try to look at the strength of the team; if you were on the waiting list last year you have a bigger chance to come this year; if you enter an open and a ladies team you have a bigger chance to come. But you can have as many criteria as you want, you will always fail a number of teams which isn’t fun at all.

That's it. Many thanks to Glenn for your insightful replies, and congratulations for running such a successful tournament. Keep on the good work.