Introducing “The New Swiss Classic”, a classical 3v3-tournament emphasizing meritocracy and freedom of choice. This competition invites the Swiss community as well as strong international teams, ensuring highly competitive matches.
does it though?
i take it all outside of any context. i don’t know much about this years swiss champs, except for hearing about mandatory mixed.
but for someone who does not know possible social/personal context, this just seems like a clear and straightforward communication about organisers preferable tournament format.
is it really wrong to say at the very beginning: anyone, but everyone, is welcome to join if they feel open or even attracted to a competitive vibe?
i tried to look at this with no presumptions regarding interpretation/inspiration… i might have failed and this is only my personal opinion.
There is a context though… and in that light, the tournament description does come across as oppositional instead of constructive.
Which is a shame, because as divisive as some of the debates may be, we’re too small of a community to get into long lasting fights about this stuff…
But hey, that’s as good a reminder as any that we should take the heat out of both sides of the argument - ‘cos all any of us really want to do is celebrate polo - and I’m sure that’s the fundemental motivation of the organisers’ also.
It’s not an attack. An attack would be me trying to discredit the Swiss Champs 2024. I’m not doing that as I explicitly stated in the description above.
In my opinion the Swiss Champs 2024 were won by Bella ! (Clément, Jojo, Quentin and Woods) (Geneva). No buts and no ifs.
“The New Swiss Classic” is just another tournament with the stated goals above. Factually, this tournament does not even abide by the 4v4 rule nor does it abide by the 2/3 rule to be considered in the same realm.
I’d still be happy to see you @Woods in Zurich, but of course I’m not forcing you.
Congratulations to you and your teammates on winning Swiss Champs 2024.
Additionally, “The New Swiss Classic” does not accomodate for “four player”-teams. Hence, I can absolutely understand if team Bella ! does not want to come. Factually, it wouldn’t even be the real team Bella ! that turns up, as one member would be left behind to abide by the 3v3-rule.
Thank you for clarifying your views. I don’t feel attacked as a player, nor my team does to be clear.
I just feel the “emphasizing meritocracy…” line is out of touch and judges the ideas put in place by the organizers and players at Swiss champs. That’s all.
And whats also distracting me is the fact that its called „the new swiss classic“. What is new about a competitive 3v3 tournament? And „new“ is in my opinion strongly connected to „better“.
I really loved this years swiss champs and felt valuable on and off the court.
To be clear, i have nothing against competitive tournaments and i fully understand the desire from better or top players to play among or against eachother. I totally got that. I would feel the same.
But this years swiss champs also represented for me the community and why i love bike polo so deeply. For the sport and the spirity. And for empowering all of our players to take the space they wanna take. Also our flinta co-players. Cause i strongly believe, that with as much effort as other top players put into bikepolo and their training, tinfa* players can be as strong (and some already are) as male players. But it needs time untill our community will be there, cause our society isn’t yet. Said so, but not everyone wanna become a top-competitive (including me) player and this should be taken into account as well. So we need a good mix for everyone without value sth more than the other. But we always should value integrity and generosity on top.
And as a player from zürich i had to give my opinion.
Imo, it’s a mindset with the focus on winning, or as they say in Bern “Play like you have something to lose”. That said, I’m trying hard to assure we got everything in place to assure that games remain civil even when things get heated.
Can newbie teams sign up?
Yes, of course. Everybody loves an underdog story of a newbie team fighting its way up the ranks.
) decide not to come and show the rest of us how it’s done 
