The Irish Quidditch team are competing in this year’s European Games
Team Ireland will be playing at the European Quidditch Games this weekend, July 7- 9 in Oslo, Norway.
The team, led by Bex McLaughlin, consists mainly of quidditch players from clubs in Belfast and Dublin as well as Irish people that have played with clubs in the UK.
Inspired by the Harry Potter series, quidditch has now evolved into a competitive sport played by thousands of players worldwide, and has been marked as the world’s most progressive sport for its gender inclusivity.
The top 15 national teams from all over the Europe will be participating in the event, which occurs every two years, and this is the second time Ireland will compete at the tournament.
A quidditch team consists of 21 athletes with seven 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 4th 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 hoops.
Seekers - Catch the snitch (worth 30 points) to end the game.
A team of seven will have one Keeper, three Chasers, two Beaters and one Seeker. A game of quidditch involves three types of balls:
The Quaffle - a semi-deflated volleyball thrown through the hoops by chasers and keepers.
Bludgers - dodgeballs thrown at other players by beaters. There are 3 bludgers on the pitch.
The Snitch - a sock with a tennis ball in it, attached to the snitch runner's shorts. When caught by either team's seeker, the game ends.
