U.S.A., World Champion of … Quidditch !

The 2018 Soccer World Cup title goes to Les Bleus for the second time, meanwhile, more than 6,000 km away from Moscow, on 2 July, in Florence (Italy), the United States won the Quidditch World Cup.

The USA won the Quidditch World Cup after beating Belgium in the final!

They became World Quidditch Champions for the third time.

The IQA World Cup is an international Quidditch tournament contested by the national teams of the members of the International Quidditch Association, the sport's global governing organisation.

The first World Cup was held in Oxford in England back in 2012, when the USA took top honors. The team took the title again in 2014, but Australia caught the snitch to snatch victory two years ago in Frankfurt, Germany.

Based on the fictitious sport from Harry Potter series

The bi-annual competition is based on the fictitious sport from J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and was adapted almost twelve years ago in the U.S.

It has now become a sport in its own right with leagues and international matches being played all over the world.

In the books, witches and wizards compete in the air on broomsticks.

In the real-life game, two teams run around with broomsticks between their legs and engage in a full-contact sport that is a mixture of rugby, dodgeball and wrestling.

It is as close to the “Harry Potter” movie version as possible in a world without magic.

The objective of the game is to obtain the most points, either via scoring goals by passing balls through rings, or by catching the 'snitch', a special ball.

In the IQA World Cup, the snitch is attached to a snitch runner’s waistband.

Players from 31 countries

More than 800 players from 31 countries as far apart as Iceland and Hong Kong took part in the tournament.

Europe:

Austria - Belgium- Catalonia- France- Germany- Iceland- Ireland- Italy- Netherlands - Norway- Poland- Slovakia- Slovenia- Spain- Sweden- Switzerland- Turkey- United Kingdom

Americas:

United States- Argentina- Brazil- Canada- Chile- Mexico- Peru

Asia & Oceania :

Australia- Indonesia- Malaysia- New Zealand- South Korea- Vietnam

 

Quidditch team

A quidditch team consists of 21 athletes with 7 players per team on the field at any one time. Each player has a broom between their legs. The four maximum rule of quidditch states that at most there can be four players of the same gender on pitch at one time. This ensures that the game is mixed gender and inclusive to all.

Players can be one of four positions:

Keepers guard the hoops from opposing chasers and become a fourth chaser on offense.

Chasers throw the quaffle through the opposite team’s hoops to score goals worth 10 points.

Beaters throw bludgers at the opposing team to ‘knock them out’ and make them return to their hoops.

Seekers catch the snitch (worth 30 points) to end the game.