University Nationals

The Australian University Championships (AUC) is a mixed competition attracting teams from around Australia. It is officially endorsed by Australian University Sport (AUS).

University Championships are held each year in late September as part of the Australian University Games (AUG), run by Australian University Sport (AUS), the peak organisation for university sport in Australia.

University Champions

History

The first ever Australian University Championship (AUC) was an unofficial one in 1997, held in conjunction with the annual Queensland tournament, the Halibut. It came about because a bunch of university teams were already organised to attend the tournament so the opportunity was taken to form a championship.

From 1998 to 2001 the Ultimate Frisbee AUC was officially endorsed by AUS, but was an AFDA organised event. The 1999 AUC was held in conjunction with EUGs that year at UWS, but all others were AFDA events.

For the first time ever, the sport was part of the Australian University Games (AUG) in 2002. The ultimate players joined around 10 000 athletes participating in dozens of sports.

As of 2005, ultimate has become one of the biggest sports at AUG, regularly fielding over 20 teams and around 300 athletes.

Regional Championships

Prior to 2007, Australia was split into four regions:

• North (Qld, NT, plus UNE and SCU-Lismore)
• East (NSW and ACT)
• South (Vic, Tas and SA)
• West (WA)

Each region was encouraged to hold regional championships each year.

The first Eastern University Championships (EUC) was held in 2001. In only it's second year the championship became a part of the Eastern University Games (EUG) in Newcastle in 2002. Ultimate Frisbee continued as a part of the EUG program through to 2006, hosted in Coffs Harbour.

The West region held its first ever Western University Championship in 2002. Ultimate frisbee continued as a part of the Western University Games Series (WUGS) through to 2006.

Ultimate frisbee was included for the first time in 2003 in the Southern University Games (SUG, held in Adelaide, and continued through to the 2006 SUG hosted in Ballarat. Universities from South Australia played a pre-qualifier as part of the SA Challenge in 2005 & 2006, with the winner given the option of bypassing SUG with a direct entry to AUG.

The sport was hosted once in the Northern region in 2006 as a part of the Northern University Games (NUG), hosted on the Sunshine Coast.

Coinciding with the introduction of Voluntary Student Unionism (VSU), a review of university sport was conducted by AUS. One of the outcomes was to abolish the regions and their corresponding events, and combine all resources into a single event - the Australian University Games.