Over the last several years, we at BE Ultimate have come to realize our obligation and responsibility to fight climate change. For us, the realization came from the fact that we have scaled—and with greater scale comes greater impact and greater responsibility.
Newfoundland is a unique province. Full of history, rugged coastlines, and quaint towns, this beautiful region lies on the very eastern tip of Canada. The province, as one of the maritimes, was able to successfully lock down early in the COVID-19 outbreak, allowing athletes like Erin Daly to get back to gyms and training earlier than athletes elsewhere.
A natural athlete focused on ultimate for years, Zellema Mot found the pandemic shut down not only her competitive outlet, but in many ways her social life as well. It was a lesson in appreciation for the people within her bubble, and those who stayed in touch.
For Anouchka Beaudry, lockdown has consisted of setting goals and refocusing. Since the World Championships were cancelled in 2020, the already busy Anouchka had to find more ways to stay active and occupied, and found solace in running.
Levke Walczak has had one goal in mind for years, and that goal has remained unchanged: play at the World Games in 2022. The COVID pandemic has been a setback for this goal, for the simple reason that it’s harder to improve at ultimate without playing consistently, but in this case, it’s a minor setback.
Mentally, quarantine was a distinct challenge for Matt Gouchoe-Hanas. It was impossible to know how long the pandemic was going to shut things down for, and so the summer of 2020 was still marked by hard training and preparation in case ultimate returned at a moment’s notice.
Training and rehab have in many ways dominated Collefas Mot’s life since the pandemic began. Coming off of a devastating ACL tear, the time in quarantine has allowed Collefas the opportunity to gain mobility and explosiveness where otherwise she might have struggled.
