Articles in English

Meaning of our team name: Tiszavirág = Mayfly

Mayflies are insects which belong to the Order Ephemeroptera (from the Greek ephemeros = "short-lived", pteron = "wing", referring to the brief lifespan of adults). They have been placed into an ancient group of insects termed the Palaeoptera, which also contains dragonflies and damselflies. They are aquatic insects whose immature stage (called "naiad" or, colloquially, "nymph") usually lasts one year in freshwater. The adults are short-lived, from a few minutes to a few days depending on the species. About 2,500 species are known worldwide, including about 630 species in North America. Common names for mayflies include "dayfly", "shadfly", "Green Bay fly", "lake fly", "fishfly" (in the Great Lakes region of North America), and "Canadian soldier".

Bővebben: Meaning of our team name: Tiszavirág = Mayfly

 

Brief Description of UWR Sport

Underwater Rugby is the only 3 dimensional team sport in the world. It is played below the surface of the water in a swimming pool by two teams. A team consists of a maximum of 15 players, six in the water, six exchange players and three reserves. Each player is wearing basic underwater equipment, i.e. fins, mask, cap with ear protection and snorkel. The object of the game is to put a negatively buoyant ball into the opposing team’s goal having the design of a larger sized waste paper basket. One goal is located at each end of the playing area on the bottom of the pool.
The playing area shall be 12 – 18 meters long and 8 – 12 meters wide. The depth of the water shall be 3,5 – 5 meters. 
The duration of the game is divided into two periods of 15 minutes with a recreation time of 5 minutes. When the game is interrupted the time counting equipment is stopped. The match is controlled by 1 Land Referee and 2 Under Water Referees one at each side of the pool bottom carrying bottles of compressed air. 
Only the player who is in possession of the ball can be tackled. Intentionally violent tackles are prohibited. 
The sport has been developed in Germany in the early sixties. 
At present many national and international tournaments are carried out up to Continental – and World Championships for men-, women- and youth teams.
 

Development of UW-Rugby

Written by Rudi Wiesner

UW Rugby is a very young sport, and one would think that at least the participants would know how it started. Wrong. All kinds of wild "origin stories" have started to circulate in the last years, from conditioning training of French Navy Units to a game played with coconuts in distant Kenya. So where does it come from?

Bővebben: Development of UW-Rugby

   

Nordic countries come along

Nordic countries come along

Underwater rugby came to nordic countries via Denmark and south Sweden at late of 60's. Swedish diving association took the game in their schedule in 1973. Underwater-polo went to Norway and Finland from Sweden. In Finland, the game was named directly from the swedish version and it became called by underwater polo. This wasn't quite effective, so players started to call this game by underwater rugby. In 1977 established underwater rugby commission to Finnish sportdiving association. The first meeting was held in Joensuu by Kari Viitanen. In Finland the first place, where people played the underwater rugby, was the courses of military divers and club called Hyvinkään Urheilusukeltajat. The finnish championships was held from year 1976 and among them, there is also been many tournaments. Vesikko-cup is the oldest one from those (from year 1973).

Official international games

First European championships was held in Sweden 1978 and the next one was in Denmark 1981. First world championships was played in Germany in 1980. Nordic championships are played from year 1976. Nowadays world championships and European championships are held with two years margin with each other.
 

The history of UWR in Russia

Written by Anya 'Seven'
 
In the late 80s, at the Moscow’s Luzhniki pool, coaches Nazarov VN and AF Karev attempted to start underwater rugby in Russia but didn’t receive much support. Around mid-90s, Coaches Gastrenko VR, Ivanov VV, Krylov AS, AI Podgorny, Pokrovsky VR, Trofimov OV, who were at the time teaching aquathlon (underwater wrestling), tried to use underwater rugby as part of their training setups. They initially called it, "underwater mini-rugby" or "akvaregbi", and used simplified rules, which were almost completely written by them. This was mainly due to the fact that at that time there was not available up-to-date rules and many of the concepts were not entirely clear. In addition, the equipment they used was not the ideal one since none of the coaches had seen the game. At the beginning they used gymnastics and basketball balls filled with salt water, and the goals were made out of trash cans or simply by using the gaps found between the pool’s stair steps.
 

Bővebben: The history of UWR in Russia