Woo! Just in time for the “We Will Be Back Soon” portion of the competition!
Thanks for the updates and links Andre!!
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Brings back good memories.
I’ve never been very good at yoing…but I sure have had some great times with this hobby!
Way back in 2002’ish I bought a yomega yoyo case…I think it included a plastic id card and possibly a yo too…and it was like $25. It was a really good deal, but it also included an entry into their 2003 word competition that would be in Las Vegas.
I had no interest in going to the competition…it was too far away, and I was a complete noob. I Just wanted the case.
But…I brought it up to my mom and dad casually…and they immediately were all for it! lol…I think my dad was just itching for an excuse to go gamble…my mom ready for a vacation.
I was only going to compete in the novice division…and I worked pretty dang hard leading up to the competition making sure I had the list of tricks needed down.
I was a regular on theyo forums back then, and I even had a shirt made with my screen name and theyo embroidered on it. It was a nice shirt!
We got there and it was amazing! First thing was signing up. They gave everyone a bag full of swag (yos and strings and other goodies) which I wasn’t expecting and thought was awesome! But if you were staying in the hotel where the competition was being held at, they also threw in a free Metallic Missile. I wasn’t staying at the hotel, but the person who was putting my bag together looked up at me, winked, shrugged his shoulders…and threw in a Metallica Missile anyhow! lol 
It was one of the funnest times of my life! I met SO many amazing people there! Steve Brown, Doc Pop, Ooch, Johnny Delvalle, some people from the forums, Black (Tomonari Ishiguro), Yukihiro Suzuki, Justin Webber (SUPER nice guy!)…I wish I had better memory and could remember everyone. SO many cool people there!
I was getting everyone to sign my shirt with a permanent marker. I thought it was going to be a cool idea…haha not so much! It was damn hot and all my sweating ended up making the ink smear and look horrible.
And I ended up completing every trick on the list! It was down to me and 1 other older guy and we had to get up on stage in front of everyone to do a tie-breaker. Who ever could do the most 1 handed inside loops would take it. lol I think I only did 5 or 6 before losing control >.<’!
Regardless…it was enough! I took 1st place in the novice division!
It’s the first time I’ve ever won a trophy in my life, and it was a really nice one too! I got yet another big bag full of yomega goodies too or winning!
It was amazing to watch all the pros though! And they came from all over the world! I was surprised at how many people traveled from other countries to attend! And there was a big handful from Japan, and omg they blew my mind! They had big hair styles, awesome attitudes and insane moves! They didn’t just stand in place on stage doing their tricks…they used the entire stage bouncing around and dancing and doing impossible things with their yos! lol…it’s one thing to see these things on a computer monitor, and another in person! It was unreal!
And my mom! OMG she use to embarass me SO badly cause she was always so loud in crowds! Screaming and hollering and whooping and shouting! lol…back then I was super shy so I didn’t want to stand out or be noticed…that was impossible when I was sitting next to my mom! xP
I’d LOVE to be able to be in a crowd with her again now. She passed in 2017…and now I miss her enthusiasm so much.
This was one of the coolest things I got to see there (though there was a TON of cool things!!!)…my mom is the loudest lady you can hear in the crowd haha >.<’.
Haha…I probably just annoyed the heck out of everyone here. People are probably looking at how long this post is and rolling their eyes with annoyance! xP
Sometimes I type too much!
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Nate Daily is pretty good.
I liked Kris Toledo
Have they ever considered having the contestants say what yo-yo they use?
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I wish this was public knowledge for all contests tbh
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Yeah, it would be cool if the live stream had a graphics overlay for each contestant showing their name, age, where they are from, and what yoyo(s) they are using.
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100% Agree.
I would give the contestants the option to not say the yo-yo, for whatever reason, if they don’t want but otherwise yeah that would be awesome.
I love this idea!
Is there a place to see the performances? Any replay anywhere?
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1A Semi-Final Results
I know finals today will all be uploaded to watch later. Not sure about Semi-Finals though.
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10.0 for Gentry on Execution!!! No one else is even close. Must have been quite the performance!!! Has anyone ever scored a perfect 100? A 97.5 must be as close to perfect as a Semi routine can be.
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Orders for finals! 
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1A starts at 2?
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Anyone else having problems with the audio being super quiet on the stream? I have everything turned up all the way, but can still barely hear it
Same issues they were having yesterday. I imagine its just their set up.
According to the website there won’t be a live stream of the 1A finals.
I’m really disappointed in the coverage and accessibility of the contest this year. Contrast this with the Japanese and Asia Pacific championships that just happened, where there were quality live streams and replay videos of all the performances that were easy to access and well organized.
Im not sure who exactly is responsible, but if I were a sponsor like YYE or YYF I would expect better. This event is one of the best opportunities to promote their brands and throwing in general and to be honest the contest is practically irrelevant to the rest of us if we can’t even watch it.
I hope they put a focus on this next year. These companies are super savvy with social media etc when they want to sell us a new yo-yo so certainly there are people involved who have the ability to do this right.
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Not much you can do if the venue the was chosen doesn’t have bandwidth to stream. Also videos will go up later when they have time to post them. There’s only so many people, so much time, and so much money to go around. Even though a stream would be nice, it’s not high priority when less than 50 people were watching at any given time.
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Andre, this is not directed at you. You are doing a great job keeping us updated. Only responding to your last post as I am curious on something.
“International IA division” isn’t this represented by the World YoYo Contest?
I’m just curious as to why this is a division in a US National contest.
Ayumu Harada got a 10.0 in execution at world semis last year, but that was the first time I saw a 10.0
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Ben from YYF was streaming the competition on his phone through Instagram.
There should always be a backup option, even if you have to use a tablet or phone on a tripod streaming it through LTE. There are multiple options including YouTube, Instagram, or Facebook live.
WiFi connection issues happen, there should be a backup plan.
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