Second peek over our borders. This time with Slovak Legend and one of Europe’s best Pullers Chorche Turan.
Introduce yourself.
I’m Chorche Turan, one of the CEL dinosaurs and still active as a player. Above all, I’m a frisbee lover. I say frisbee player as I play all of the frisbee disciplines (or played throughout the years). Of course ultimate is my biggest plastic love. I started to throw frisbee in summer 1987 with my uncle Latso Graus – the greatest frisbee legend in Slovakia. We both joined ultimate community right after the iron curtain fell down. I played my first tournament in Prague 1993 with a UK pick up team. Since then, I started to play (more or less) competitive ultimate abroad. Our first ultimate journeys headed to Czech Republic and Austria (ow yeah those beautiful Summer Leagues in Vienna!). In 1994, right after the WUCC in Colchester our team got finally a name, Mental Discorders, where I still play these days.
Describe your role in Slovak ultimate.
I have been a big fan of ultimate, high intensity-non contact sport without refs since forever! And I’m a big fan of self-officiating also these days. It simply teaches us how to be better players but also better people.
In 1996, I was co-founder of Slovak Association of Frisbee, and a few months afterwards we organized the first international tournament in Slovakia (Summer Trophy SPOJE) where teams played from the later known CEL region. In summer 1999, I played with thebigEZ in St. Andrews(WUCC), great Austrian team with some international pickups. We did quite well (as the team formed only 7-8 months prior to the tournament). Year after I was elected as the captain of the Slovak national open team for WUGC Heilbronn, which put me in a bit of a complicated situation, as I had to command older players playing. We surprised many people here including ourselves. In 2002, had little chat with Oddi (Andrea Furlan), Dave Brauchli(FUJ Prague), Szilard Palinkas (Paprikas, Hallodigaze HU) and we formed CEL series, which transformed (mainly) thanks to Oddi’s super endeavor to EUCF, as far as I know. Besides, in the 23-year active career I organized dozens of frisbee events in Slovakia including Slovak Nationals, CEL finals 2005, EFC 2009 (European Freestyle Champs), Intergalactic Turbo Fun and Blowout (annual international tournaments in Slovakia). In the past few years I was the head coach of Slovak national teams (WUCC 2010, WBCU 2011, or EUC 2011). This year I was elected as Mor ho! (Slovak elite ultimate team) captain.
Where will we see Slovak teams this summer?
Firstly, you can see Slovak teams play in Slovakia. Competing in Slovak league is getting harder every year. Some teams will probably travel abroad mostly for fun tournaments like FFFF, Bibione, 10years of CHB and other. Our elite teams Mor ho! (open) and LayD’s (women) will try the best in the EUCF series. They will also attend Windmill or Frisbix in regular season. Both teams are getting younger which is very good for Slovak ultimate. We hope we will form solid core of both teams.
Our strategic goal is to qualify to WUCC 2014, therefore our roster by now consists of 40 players.
We will see how many players we will have this year. It’s still open. We really want to bring high quality players. As the head coach I will have to make some tough choices, but we will see how it will turn out.
In terms of practice, I believe there are no surprises or magic formulas. You have to do your personal best on daily basis. We are in the stage of negotiating to form micro events with other open teams, but so far it’s only in stage of ideas and suggestions.
I believe girls have the same intentions as the open team. They are struggling a little bit with number of players, but they have a very solid core that has been playing together for several years, so they are very hopeful for the season. We decided to coordinate both teams to share costs and potentially increase motivation to attend camps or practices.
Other Slovak teams
Morthens , the fresh indoor champ, is on fire and is already the driving force behind Mor ho! altogether with Banik Lasky Prievidza, UFO Spacince, KEFear Kosice, Kus Plastu Senica and Mental Discorders wil force sort of national team. Scorpions will be the core of national beach coed and Golden Antz and Discredit are in the stage of deciding of goals for 2013. Outsiterz will go probably their own way focusing on coed division.
Do you get any help financial or otherwise from governing bodies in Slovakia?
Slovak sport generally is in a brutal crunch. As sport superstars (in many if not all sports) will quit very soon as their age reaches 35. This is also the story of Slovak frisbee. Some legends who were an inspiration throughout the years already quit and some are just about to quit. The positive is we have about 40-50 juniors which is not bad. So hopefully there will be rasonable continuation and further development.
SAF (Slovak Frisbee Association) received grant from Ministry of Education in 2012 and in a few days we will know whether we receive a grant for 2013. Other important external resources are from taxes. All economic subjects in Slovakia can donate directly 2% of their taxes to desired NGO subjects. From this resource Slovak frisbee generates about 7,000 EUR combined, which hardly covers training facilities.
The rest of costs is covered from our own pockets (about 95% of all expenses). But frankly, I do not complain as we are moving forward little by little. Im optimistic as we are on the track.
What are the newest developments in Slovak ultimate?
Yes. Growth is inevitable and it is the highest priority of many institutions/teams including my club Mental Discorders and SAF.
There are probably two development ways which run simultaneously.
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developing school programs which we started a few years ago.
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Street talent (gardens, parks, events)
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SAF created education packages which we now sell for subsidized price to schools who might be interested. PaedDr. Gustav Argaj also runs an ultimate frisbee tournament every December at Faculty of Sports Education since 2002 primarily aimed for future PE teachers. For example, team Golden Antz Zlate Moravce was established by „Super Vili“, former student of PaedDr Argaj. Vili Holicka is now the driving force behind a successful mixed team on mixed UKU tour, Golden Antz London.
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Mental Discorders created a platform for recreational Frisbee in 2012. We named it
„I can frisbee anywhere“ and the primary goal of this project is to offer regular no-practice frisbee. Just throw, catch and enjoy frisbee. We also attend the biggest music festival in Slovakia, www.pohodafestival.sk, every year with quite some success. On Pohoda festival we teach and lend frisbees to visitors. Thanks to the Pohoda project we found/formed teams like Banik Prievidza or Kus Plastu Senica. In September we also attend boy scout days. The team Scorpions consists mostly of boy scouts.
As I mentioned, SAF organizes slovak ultimate league (SUL) which consists of 2 regular rounds plus one qualifier. In September, top 8 teams will fight for the title in the Slovak ultimate championship that we started with two teams in 1996.
Other Slovak events consist of camps, DG events and fun ultimate tourneys like Blowout.
Closest upcoming event is the first round of SUL near Trnava. This years Paganello will remain without Slovak teams.
We run annual award for the best frisbee players in slovakia with about dozen categories.
Its called puklica.sk (axle cap) originally created to „reward“ the laziest frisbee player.
It went big since 2007 and now is a big Galashow in mid December.
Thanks for interest all the best to the Austrian frisbee scene !
Thanks!