Ultimate Club’s Elite-Select Challenge returns to Grand Park

The REPORTER

The Indiana Ultimate Foundation will host the 2024 USA Ultimate Club’s Elite-Select Challenge at Grand Park Sports Campus beginning this weekend.

The Elite-Select Challenge takes place from Aug. 17 to 28 at the Grand Park Sports Campus and will feature North America’s top Ultimate athletes and teams. The competition structure equally highlights men’s, women’s and mixed-gender Ultimate. This is the third year the event has been hosted at Grand Park.

The event is family-friendly and open to spectators at no cost.

Ultimate is a team sport with players using a flying disc to score points. All matches are self-officiated, with three games each round using observers, under Ultimate’s “Spirit of the Game” ethos. The Elite-Select Challenge is part of the Triple Crown Tour, a high-profile, invitation-only showcase of five tournaments.

The Elite-Select Challenge tournament gives 48 teams across three divisions an opportunity to improve national rankings. Premier teams are invited from the bottom half of the previous year’s national championship participants (Elite Flight – eight teams in each division) and those that narrowly missed out on qualifying for the National Championships (Select Flight – 16 teams in each division). This tournament often leads to a shakeup in the national power rankings as teams vie to earn bids for their respective regions.