Frisbee in the Illawarra often means a summer’s day at the beach with the family. You might follow this fun in the sun with a night out dancing, disco balls and loud music a plenty. But for some locals, the globally recognised sports of ultimate flying disc and all star dance are tickets to international success.
These two sports produce some of the Illawarra’s most successful athletes, including podium finishes at this year’s world championships. However, although they put in as many hours as any athlete, while their Olympic counterparts walk home with thousands of dollars, these competitors just walk home sweaty. Without a spot on the coveted Olympic roster, recognition for their success and key funding to compete do not come easily, but it won’t stop them from soaring to new heights in 2025.
Ultimate flying disc
Australian representative ultimate flying disc player, world bronze medallist, and Illawarra local Jono Keyes said that finding the resources to play is half the battle of making it big-time.
“At the moment, top players have to work one, two jobs, and it’s all self-funded,” he said.
“There’s no funding at all and very little sponsorship.”
Jono said that the sport’s non-Olympic status is holding it back.
“Whenever a sport becomes Olympic, all of a sudden more government funding is available, and more support is available which are the resources ultimate requires at the moment to get established.
“If we had the resourcing to be able to grow, we could really make our top athletes professional.”
Ultimate flying disc is known more commonly around the world as ultimate Frisbee, but with “Frisbee” being a registered trademark, the sport had to opt for a slightly longer name.
Ultimate flying disc involves two teams of seven players defending an end zone. Points are scored when a team catches the flying disc in the opposing team’s end zone, with the game concluding when a team has scored fifteen points. Sound simple? It gets more complicated when it comes to fouls in this “fun, fast, non-contact and self-refereed” sport, as described by the Australian Flying Disc Association.
If you are confused as to how a sport can be self-refereed, you are not alone. As backwards as it sounds, Jono said that fouls in ultimate are resolved mid-game by the players themselves, even at the world championships.
“If someone feels like they were fouled or they wanted to make a call, they’ll make the call and discuss that with their opponent, and you can either accept the call or you can contest it,” Jono said.
“You can disagree, and that’s fine, and the play will just kind of restart and keep going.”
Though not a game built for the short-tempered, Jono described how the self-refereeing nature of the sport adds to the “spirit” of the game.
“The game relies on the players’ sportsmanship to sort out any calls that are made,” he said.
Ultimate flying disc is rostered on for The World Games 2025, an international event for sports not contested in the Olympics. Jono, whose ultimate career started at the University of Wollongong, said that it is this kind of prestigious event that keeps him going.
“The World Games is the highest form of frisbee you can play, and I can say that I’m fairly motivated for that,” he said.
Performance cheerleading
On the other side of Wollongong, Australian representative performance cheerleader Jade Higgins said that her world championship bronze medal was a life changing experience.
“I’ve honestly never been so proud of an achievement in my life,” she said.
“It was really the pinnacle of my sporting career.”
Jade, who dances for NRG Studios, said that despite the challenges of balancing life and elite training, she would not have it any other way.
“It’s really difficult, especially competing at such a level alongside university and work,” she said.
“The balance is difficult at times, but it’s a super rewarding process, and you just feel so strong mentally and physically at the end of it.
“There’s no feeling like it, to be recognised on a national and international platform.”
Performance cheerleading, or all star dance as it is known in Australia, is another provisionally approved Olympic sport on The World Games 2025 schedule. All star dance has five styles – jazz, hip hop, pom, lyrical and kick – and teams perform a two minute and fifteen second routine to impress the judges.
Jade’s coach and owner of NRG Studios Illawarra Genevieve Anderson said that all star dance is much more structured than traditional competitive dancing.
“All star dance is very different, because no one can leave the stage and you only have just over 2 minutes to perform,” Genevieve said.
“It has a recognised scorecard and a panel of judges.
“It’s become so much better in that way of judging, so it’s now up there with the level of judging that you would have for rhythmic gymnastics.”
Genevieve also said that the 2024 World Championships was a great milestone for her business.
“This year, coming third at The Dance Worlds was definitely a big highlight in my career,” she said.
“It’s definitely one of those once in a lifetime opportunities that we were really lucky to have.”
Despite their success, both Jade and Genevieve faced similar financial struggles to Jono. Despite being recognised by the International Olympic Committee, Genevieve said that because all star dance is not recognised by the Australian Sports Commission, money is hard to come by.
“Every athlete that goes as part of Team Australia is completely funding themselves, and it’s thousands upon thousands of dollars that you spend to try and represent your country,” she said.
And when competitions at this scale go wrong, the losses are immense. Jade qualified for the Dance World Championships for the first time in 2019 for the 2020 championships, but when COVID hit, the travel company that her team had booked their trip to Orlando with went into liquidation.
“We not only lost our money, but we lost a lot of team members, and also a lot of motivation,” Jade said.
“To be training at such a high level at such a young age, we really put our absolute everything into training every week.
“It was heart-breaking.”
It is not just monetary benefits that the non-Olympic status of the sport is holding back. Genevieve said that the health benefits of dance go beyond those of other sports.
“Being recognised by the Olympics would keep people in the sport for longer, with options for Masters competitions, so there are other avenues to keep people engaged with this sport potentially for the rest of their lives, which is good for everyone because not everyone loves to play football or soccer,” Genevieve said.
“It is still a sport, but it does have that creative element and that expression, which I think is really important as a human.
“There’s just so many things that you learn from being part of all star team dance that follow you through for the rest of your life, and you learn to be resilient in a way that you don’t learn, I don’t think, in other sports.”
Recent studies emerging from the University of Sydney do suggest that dance is better than other sports or forms of physical activity for cognitive, social and psychological health, alongside the physical benefits.
These benefits come in addition to the fact that dance is a fun sport at its core. Jade said that dancing has helped improve her self-esteem and quality of life.
“I think it’s given me a greater appreciation for my body, and wanting to feel strong and flexible and wanting to care for my body,” she said.
“It’s also a creative outlet, just allowing me to express my emotions and to just move to the music and really feel good about it.”
Jade also said the toxic reputation of dance coming out of shows such as Netflix’s America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders is far from reality for all star dance.
“I definitely think that all star dance is more of a team approach versus eisteddfod or the shows that you see,” she said.
“Everyone’s really encouraging of each other and trying to assist each other to get a better score, and it’s not versing each other internally in the studio.”
“I think these shows are giving a really bad representation of our sport.”
The future for ultimate and all star dance
Both Jono and Genevieve expressed hopes that their sports would be included in the Brisbane 2032 Olympic Games, with a home ground the perfect setting for an Olympic debut. Though the final list of sports will not be announced for another few years yet, regardless of outcomes, both sports are quickly gaining traction around the world. In the meantime, local teams will continue to rely on the community for sponsorships and support as they continue pursuing international sporting success.