“It is a surreal feeling and a super emotional one,” says Sahana Arvind, one of the Spirit captains—responsible for the sense of fairplay—of Airbenders, a Bengaluru-based Ultimate Frisbee club, which won gold on July 5 in the ‘mixed’ category at the TRIO Invitational Tournament 2026 held at the Equestrian Park in Putrajaya, Malaysia.As someone who has been part of the club for over a decade, joining it in 2015, around three years after its inception, she believes that this club’s success stems from its legacy. “This wouldn’t have been possible without the foundation that the previous players of the club have laid, contributing to the team we are today,” says Sahana, who also reveals yet another reason for the club’s victory: their hunger to succeed.One of the team members who shares that drive for excellence is Sagarika Ghanagam, who co-captains the team with Ajay Yadav. “We have been practising as a club team for years, and have been pretty dedicated to the sport, training every weekend,” she says. “The fact that we have a common goal and passion drives us to do better and stick together.”The victory is also “hugely significant” for Ultimate in India, according to the tournament’s Spirit Director and the vice-president of the Asia Flying Disc Federation, Abhinav Vinayakh Shankarnarayanan. He adds that while Indian national teams, which bring together the best players from across the country, have done well internationally, a club team doing so on the international stage is particularly special. “A club is a group of people building together over time—training together, creating systems and developing players. So, for a club to travel abroad, compete against strong international teams, and win is a really meaningful marker of how much the domestic game has grown,” he says.