Disk brings twist to Holy Week in Italy
RIMINI, Italy -- When most people think of visiting Italy for Easter vacation, rarely do they stuff their suitcases with 40-ounce beer bottles, Spandex and oversized Uncle Sam top hats. But in the case of the American Gladiators, a Chicago co-ed Ultimate team, this is packing protocol.
For the uninitiated, Ultimate is a team sport that uses a plastic disk, along the lines of a Frisbee. Like football, players earn points by passing the disk to another teammate in the opposing team's end zone. Like basketball, players can't run while holding the disk.
(Sun-Times News Group file)
GETTING THERE: From Chicago, Alitalia Airlines flies to Rimini, Italy, with a plane change in Rome. From the Federico Fellini International Airport in Rimini, a cab ride into the city center will take about half an hour and cost about $19. You also can fly into Bologna on Alitalia and catch a cab to the Bologna train station for the one-hour train ride to Rimini. Train tickets cost about $13.
WHERE TO STAY: Find a list of seaside hotels recommended by the Paganello staff under the "Directions" section at paganello.com.
MORE INFO: Rimini tourist information can be found at riminiturismo.it. The site opens in Italian, but you can follow the clickable Union Jack flag icons for easy translations. For more information about Ultimate, visit the national governing body of the sport's site at upa.org.
The American Gladiators make up just a few of the colorful, spirited 1,500 Ultimate players who journey each spring to Rimini, Italy, to participate in Paganello -- Europe's largest Beach Ultimate tournament. (Beach Ultimate is similar to Ultimate, with a few tweaks in the rules, field size and number of players on a team ... and one is played on sand.)
Every year from Holy Thursday to Easter Monday, Paganello, a cultural extravaganza of Olympic-style athleticism and Carnival-esque revelry, starts on Rimini Beach, where a few months later thousands of Italians will converge for their summer holiday.
During Paganello, the natives of Rimini host more than 100 teams from more than 25 countries. Hotels book up entirely with Ultimate teams. Kids hound players for autographs. And colorful, laser-lit beach parties last long enough to be drained out by the fluorescent sun rising over the surf, illuminating the wine-stained sand and sprawled-out revelers.
Unlike pious Catholic tourists flocking to celebrate Holy Week in other parts of Italy, these beach-bound players don't spend their days in church. They prefer their own forms of devotion: competing, partying and resting -- that is, if time allows.
"The first year I went, all of my games started at 8 a.m. We would play about five games a day, finish up in the evening and not make it back to the hotel room until 5 a.m.," said American Gladiators team captain Rachel Driver, 27, of Skokie.
As for those 40-ounce beer bottles, Driver and fellow Gladiators lugged them across the Atlantic Ocean "so we could give America's finest malt liquor as spirit gifts to other teams," she said.
Paganello consists of two major competitions. The World Beach Ultimate Cup is the main event, broken into Open (Men's), Women's, and Co-Ed divisions. The other main event belongs to "freestylers" who battle it out at the World Freestyle Challenge, a competition consisting of duos and individuals steadily spinning disks on their fingers while performing gymnastic-type stunts with the rest of their bodies (think Harlem Globetrotters meets break dancing).
Most players, like Driver, follow a strict schedule of rising early for daytime games and staying up for all-night parties.
Once everyone arrives on Holy Thursday, it's time for the opening bash. Players and spectators alike gather at the beach for a feast of Lenten staples: pasta, fried fish and red wine. The wine, the area's very own Sangiovese di Romagna, is served in 2-foot tall barrels each outfitted a skinny plastic tube for properly dispensing the wine to the cup -- or mouth. A few cups in and everyone starts engaging in cross-cultural mingling, dancing and swimming, while enjoying fireworks or laser light shows. Every night the party theme changes until it all ends on Monday afternoon with an award presentation for the tournament's top team.
"In the beginning, Paganello was considered a strange happening attended by crazy people," said Gian Pietro Miscione, Paganello founder and manager. "Now, Paganello has become a city event. Everyone knows it marks the beginning of spring. It is something that belongs to the town."
For the past 19 years, Miscione, a k a Jumpi, and his friends have organized this tournament. For him, it's a year-long effort of spreading the word but respecting the close-knit Ultimate community.
"Many times we resisted temptations to make it bigger in order to organize things," he said. "Our mission remains to offer top competition and big fun. Every year this becomes more difficult because Ultimate is getting more 'serious.' The challenge is to make the athleticism compatible with the incredible social energy of Paganello."
Aside from players running around in themed costumes and diving after disks, Ultimate remains unique from other sports. All games are officiated by the players. There are no refs; the players call their own fouls. At the end of each match, both teams do a cheer for the other and exchange gifts. The Russians give out vodka shots. The French bake pastries. The Swiss play a blindfold game. And the American Gladiators introduce the world to 40-ounce bottles of malt liquor.
It's this kind of camaraderie that keeps people coming back. Players come to fulfill their Paganello pilgrimage, spectators show up to witness the fun and the whole town revels in the Ultimate sport.
Katie Eigel is a Chicago-based free-lance writer.
