Gigi Downey ’23 to represent U.S. in world ultimate frisbee championship

By Emily Tarinelli ’25

Sports Editor

When Gigi Downey ’23 was invited to a friend’s ultimate frisbee practice in 2015, she was unsure about going and whether she would even like it. Now, eight years later, she has multiple accolades in the sport. Her most recent achievement: qualifying for the women-matching under-24 national team, punching a ticket to Nottingham, United Kingdom, to represent the United States in the U24 world ultimate championship.

A geography major and architecture minor, Downey played several sports growing up — including soccer, softball and track — but none of them stuck with her like ultimate frisbee. As a student at Newton North High School in Newton, Massachusetts, Downey competed on both a youth club team and their high school’s frisbee team, where they served as captain during their senior year.

Now a senior at Mount Holyoke, Downey is a co-captain of Daisy Chain, the College’s ultimate frisbee team and one of Mount Holyoke’s club sports. Founded in 2005, Daisy Chain is no stranger to high achievements. According to the team’s biography on the USA Ultimate website, Daisy Chain has qualified for the Division III College Championships each year since 2016, with a fifth-place finish at last year’s 2022 championships in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Additionally, Downey was recognized as last year’s Ultiworld D-III Women’s Defensive Player of the Year for their stellar performance on the field, and was named to the All-American first team.

“On offense, Downey is a speedy handler who is not afraid to make a big play or two. Her upline and strike cuts proved hard to defend and she proved to be a force near the end zone (12 goals, 14 assists). Even when she turns the disc, she knows how to find a way to get it back,” a statement on the Ultiworld website said. “As a defender, she is just as, if not more, versatile. When setting up a zone, she could cause damage in any position … What possibly makes Downey stand out the most as a defender is her heads-up defense. With an eye always on the disc, she got her hands on discs that the players she was defending didn’t see coming.”

To qualify for the U24 world team, Downey had to complete a questionnaire application in order to be invited to the tryouts.

“It was kind of like applying to a job or applying to school,” Downey recalled. “We answered a bunch of different questions that were like, ‘What’s Spirit of the Game? What kind of player are you? What’re your best strengths?’”

According to Downey, “Spirit of the Game” is a conceptual element that is unique to ultimate frisbee.

“Frisbee is a self-officiated sport. So we have observers at certain levels of play, but for the most part, when you make a call, it has to be from you and you have to talk to the [other team’s] person. … [Spirit of the Game] is basically holding respect for the other player, knowing the rules and upholding them and not cheating,” Downey said. “I feel like I value that kind of connection of trying to effectively communicate with people.”

This was not the first time that Downey attempted to qualify for the world team. In 2019, she was invited to the under-20 tryouts.

“I was really invested,” Downey said. “I would throw every day and I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is a great opportunity.”

But in the middle of the tryouts, Downey broke their arm.

“It was such a big bummer,” Downey said.

Going into the U24 tryouts, which were hosted in Atlanta, Georgia, in early November 2022, Downey said that her biggest goal was to just have fun.

“I kind of had that mentality of [thinking it] was not going to be great because of how bad the last tryouts were. So my goal was to just giggle and try to play my best. And I honestly felt like I didn’t play my best, too, which was kind of funny,” Downey said.

The results of the tryouts arrived in mid-December, and Downey recalled the moment she found out that she made the team with laughter.

“It was pretty funny,” they said. “I was on the toilet. I was reading my email after cleaning out the art studio [when] it was winding down for the semester. And I had a little dance party and ran around afterwards to celebrate.”

According to an MHC This Week email sent to the Mount Holyoke community on Jan. 25, Downey is one of 24 players who claimed a spot on the U24 team out of the 200 athletes who tried out. Hosted by the World Flying Disc Federation, the games will take place between July 1 and 8, 2023. Downey will meet with the U.S. team for one weekend in the spring and will undergo an intensive training session during the week before the world championship. Until then, it is up to her to train independently. With Daisy Chain and their involvement on Boston Slow, a mixed club team based in the Boston area, that should not be a problem for Downey.

“Working hard for the people that I care about [motivates me],” Downey said. “It’s also the little things too, just like showing up to practice, doing silly things … I think just finding time with each other is super awesome.”