A group of students and alumni from The University of Nottingham Ningbo (UNNC) are set to take on the world at Ultimate Frisbee.
The group will compete at the World Flying Disc Federation 2016 World Ultimate and Guts Championships in London as part of the China and Hong Kong teams.
Three alumni from UNNC are also volunteering at the event which takes place between 19 and 25th June and will see 120 teams from more than 40 countries compete.
The team is being captained by Zhixing Xue who was taught to play Ultimate Frisbee by Gordon Thomas who first introduced the sport to students in Ningbo between 2004 and 2006.
Now nine players, including Wanshu Qu and Shengyi Zhao who are on courses that divide their time between UNNC and The University of Nottingham, will complete in the China Mixed team and two players will complete for the Hong Kong Mixed teams.The success of the students at UNNC has grown since four of them competed in the 2012 Championships.
Zhixing said: “We are very excited to be coming to the UK to play in the championships- especially with such a large number of UNNC students and alumni.
“There are so many benefits to playing Ultimate – it is free, open and fun. All players including opponents are very friendly on and off the field. We have learnt how to work as a team, respect our teammates and our opponents.
“We love the community and treat it as our family even after we have graduated.”
Ultimate is a non-contact sport played by two teams of seven players. The object of the game is for a team to pass the Frisbee disc from player to player, all the way up the field, and catch the disc in their end-zone, which scores a point. Players cannot run with the disc.
The full list of Nottingham students and alumni playing for the teams is below.
China Mixed Team:
First Name Surname Year of Graduation
Zhixing Xue 2009 UNNC
Jian Chen 2010 UNNC
Yanguan Li 2011 UNNC
Maozhi Liu 2015 UNNC
Xiaofei Wang 2015 UNNC
Xinyu Chen 2016 UNNC
Shengyi Zhao 2017 2 yr at UNNC/2yr at UNUK
Yang Guo 2009 UNNC
Wanshu Qu 2015 UNNC / studying master degree at UNUK
Hong Kong Mixed Team:
First Name Family Name Year of Graduation
Tsz Yu Lai 2014 UNNC
Man Shun Chung 2014 UNNC
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Notes to editors: The University of Nottingham has 43,000 students and is ‘the nearest Britain has to a truly global university, with a “distinct” approach to internationalisation, which rests on those full-scale campuses in China and Malaysia, as well as a large presence in its home city.’ (Times Good University Guide 2016). It is also one of the most popular universities in the UK among graduate employers and was named University of the Year for Graduate Employment in the 2017 The Times and The Sunday Times Good University Guide. It is ranked in the world’s top 75 by the QS World University Rankings 2015/16, and 8th in the UK for research power according to the Research Excellence Framework 2014. It has been voted the world’s greenest campus for four years running, according to Greenmetrics Ranking of World Universities.
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