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Khayobas Derrick Ntsume flings a frisbee in an Ultimate Frisbee match against the Long Donkeys of Pietermaritzburg.

JANIS KINNEAR

Staff Reporter

A mixed-gender team, with members from Khayelitsha, has earned the title as the country’s top ultimate frisbee team.

The 18-player Khayoba team was formed last year and half of the team members are young men and women, aged between 16 and 28, from the area.

The other members are from the southern suburbs and overseas. Last week they walked away with the coveted title as the winners of the ninth Annual South African National Ultimate Frisbee Championships held in Joburg.

Competing against 16 teams, which included more than 250 players, the event was hailed as the “largest ultimate frisbee tournament in Africa”.

The team has rigorously been training for the contest since January.

Co-captain Asanda Nanise, 23, who lives in Khayelitsha’s H section, has been playing the sport since the age of 12.

He said he was introduced to Frisbee by one of his teachers at Eluxolweni Primary.

“I immediately fell in love with the sport.”

His teacher then recruited him to join the school team and, after excelling, he went on to play professionally.

Nanise said little was known about the sport in townships, and that they needed more exposure to boost its popularity.

“People think of frisbee as just something you throw to dogs, but it is a serious sport.”

Twenty-seven-year-old Anne Maftei, one of the handlers originally from Canada, said the sport had helped to keep many of her teammates off the streets.

Being in a mixed-gender team had also proved to her that men and women could compete together, she said.