Bilkent University Official Quidditch Team

About Quidditch

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Real-life quidditch was created on a sunny Sunday afternoon in 2005 by Xander Manshel and Alex Benepe, students at Middlebury College in Vermont, US. Their idle Sunday pastime laid the foundations for the full contact and gender inclusive sport played today. They began playing regular intramural games, and in 2007 played the first intercollegiate match.

2008 saw a 12 team World Cup championship, featuring a team from McGill University of Quebec, Canada, the first non-US competitor the sport had seen. As more schools created teams and media outlets began to take notice, it was clear that the sport needed more formal governance. The IQA, which also functioned as the US organizing body, was incorporated as a nonprofit business in 2010.quidditch123123124

In 2011, the IQA organized World Cup V in New York City, a 96-team tournament boasting competitors from the US, Canada, Finland, and over 10,000 ticketed spectators. The same year, the newly formed Australian Quidditch Association organized its first major tournament and the first such event outside of North America, the QUAFL Cup, in New South Wales.

In 2012, the IQA hosted national teams from the US, Canada, the UK, France, and Australia in Oxford, England for the inaugural Global Games, a bi-annual tournament showcasing the talents of the best players from around the world, which occurred alongside a torch ceremony for the London Olympics. The Games spurred interest and growth in quidditch across Europe, and national organizations governing the sport sprang up around the world.

quidditch-rapThe second Global Games took place in 2014 in Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada. Seven nations competed for glory before hundreds of fans on site and thousands more online. Also that year, the former IQA relaunched as US Quidditch to manage the sport in the US and established a dedicated transition team to build a new IQA with a solely international focus. The IQA is now charged with managing issues of international governance and development, as well as spearheading organization of national team tournaments worldwide. The IQA serves approximately 20 quidditch-playing organizations and nations on six continents, as well as the thousands of players and fans that these groups represent.

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