Team USA’s Beau Kittredge, the only Flying Disc athlete to have won three gold medals in The World Games, is one of the 24 candidates for “The World Games Greatest Athlete of All Time.” The selection will be done via a public, online, popular vote, with voting commencing on 8th January 2021 at the website: https://www.theworldgames.org/awards/The-World-Games-Greatest-Athlete-of-All-Time-81.
”Beau is clearly a top contender for the honor, given his standout career and performance across three editions of The World Games,” stated WFDF President Robert “Nob” Rauch. “Although the next Games have been postponed to 2022, this is a special 40th year anniversary for the Games, in which Flying Disc has participated as a medal sport since 2001. We hope our entire community will get behind this voting effort and show support for Beau and our sport.”
There are candidates from all editions of The World Games’ 40-year long history, and they represent 24 different sports, as nominated by their International Federations. Kittredge, who brought home gold with Team USA in 2009, 2013 and 2017, is considered to be one of the greatest Ultimate players of all time.
Beau began his career in the early 2000s, winning a college national championship with the University of Colorado in 2004, before going on to play in the US club circuit, winning USA Ultimate National Championships in 2010, 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018 with San Francisco Revolver and New York PoNY. He was a core member of Team USA in winning the WFDF World Ultimate Championships in 2012 and 2016 and the WFDF World Ultimate Club Championships with Revolver in 2010 and 2014. He has been a standout player in the semi-pro American Ultimate Disc League with Championships in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, and 2019 across several teams, and was named league MVP in 2014 and 2015. Kittredge, age 38, was born in Fairbanks, Alaska and currently lives in Brooklyn, New York, USA, where outside of his Ultimate career he is also an author, illustrator, and mobile video game entrepreneur.
All members of the public can vote multiple times but only once per 24 hours, for their favorite candidate. Like last year, they will also need to vote for another candidate at the same time. The voting commences today and ends on the 1st of February, but 20th January is an important milestone: on Wednesday 20th January 2021 at 16:00 CET, only the 10 highest ranked candidates at that time will continue in the race. They will keep the votes earned by then. At the end, the three best athletes will be awarded with a trophy and a branded gift from the official sponsor Protective Life.
In The World Games 2019 Athlete of the Year vote, Hockey star Rani (IND) won with over 90,000 votes. WFDF’s nominee, Team Finland, finished 9th in the 2019 competition, the second year that Flying Disc had made it to the semifinals in the contest. Finland garnered 27,683 votes, besting the 9,940 Flying Disc earned in 2018.
Vote every day on The World Games website: https://www.theworldgames.org/awards/The-World-Games-Greatest-Athlete-of-All-Time-81