Quidditch is a mixed gender sport that is played with 3 chasers, 2 beaters, a keeper and a seeker on the field.
On July 23/24 of this year, over 2000 players and spectators flocked to Frankfurt, Germany, for the 3rd Quidditch World Cup. 21 teams from Europe, Britain, Asia, the Americas and Australia all turned up vying for gold. The US team entered the tournament as heavy favourites, having never lost a match and having never dropped a point in a grand final. However, in a feat considered impossible by the quidditch community at large, the Quidditch Australia Dropbears walked away with gold, having defeated the US team in the grand final 150*-130 (* denotes a snitch catch, worth 30 points). As someone who watches a lot of different sports – I would still say that this was the single most intense and amazing sporting match I have ever watched! The ANU Owls chaser and captain James Mortenson, and beater Lee Shu Ying, were instrumental in this grand final, handing the US their first ever defeat.
In the previous Quidditch World Cup in 2014 Australia walked away with silver, again losing only to the American team. The competition this year though was even more tough with Australia’s path to the final requiring them to go through Germany, France and Canada. The Dropbears prevailed, however, winning each of these highly intense matches 150*-20, 110*-60 and 90*-40.
The ANU Owls are having a very successful year in quidditch. In addition to our World Cup representatives, just one week before the World Cup, the ANU team walked away as champions of the local Midwinter Cup tournament, and will be looking for gold again at the Asian Quidditch Cup on weekend of July 30/31.
Interested in becoming a Dropbear at the 2018 Quidditch World Cup? Start playing quidditch today! Join the ANU Quidditch Club Facebook group for training times, and feel welcome to come along! If you would like to follow the results of the Owls at the Asian Quidditch Club make sure to “like” our Facebook page at Australian National University Owls – Quidditch.
We acknowledge the Ngunnawal and Ngambri people, who are the Traditional Custodians of the land on which Woroni, Woroni Radio and Woroni TV are created, edited, published, printed and distributed. We pay our respects to Elders past and present. We acknowledge that the name Woroni was taken from the Wadi Wadi Nation without permission, and we are striving to do better for future reconciliation.