Day 1 of the 2015 World Yo-yo Contest comes to an end after a marathon of over 250 players going through the wildcard round for all divisions! Here are the results!
1A
As expected, this was a tough and cruel round for the 169 players competing for a spot in tomorrow’s preliminaries. Only 33 players made it through, with some of the crowd favorites failing to advance. The American players did a great job, with six players (Andrew Bergen, Colin Beckford, Eric Tran-Ton, Clint Armstrong, Kevin Nicholas, and Lucas Gremler) among the qualified, along with two contestants from China (Pisco and Weichuan Wang) and one from Hong Kong (Benson Fok). Among those who failed to make the cut were Vashek Kroutil, Hidemasa Senba, Eric Koloski, and Ryosuke Iwasawa.
These are the qualified players in 1A:
- Toya Kobayashi (Japan)
- Benson Fok (Hong Kong)
- Izuru Hasumi (Japan)
- Andrew Bergen (United States)
- Yuki Nishisako (Japan)
- Yuya Yatani (Japan)
- Colin Beckford (United States)
- Ryota Komatsu (Japan)
- Shinya Kido (Japan)
- Hiroaki Yoshii (Japan)
- Eric Tran-Ton (United States)
- Tatsuaki Okamoto (Japan)
- Koyo Hashimoto (Japan)
- Clint Armstrong (United States)
- Pisco (China)
- Ayumu Harada (Japan)
- Kevin Nicholas (United States)
- Daiki Tanaka (Japan)
- Kazuya Murata (Japan)
- Tsukasa Namba (Japan)
- Yuki Shigematsu (Japan)
- Kento Muraoka (Japan)
- Kaito Tanaka (Japan)
- Amane Okubo (Japan)
- Weichuan Wang (China)
- Ginji Miura (Japan)
- Takumi Sakamoto (Japan)
- Ryosuke Hara (Japan)
- Shinji Toyoda (Japan)
- Kenta Kushiro (Japan)
- Tomoki Toyama (Japan)
- Lucas Gremler (United States)
- Ryo Igarashi (Japan)
Full results for 1A can be found here.
2A
With only one player outside Japan competing in the wildcard round, it’s no surprise that all eleven qualified players are Japanese. We hoped 1999 World Champion Takumi Nagase would make it, but he was unable to match the speed of the current 2A generation.
- Ginji Miura (Japan)
- Koichiro Ueta (Japan)
- Yutaro Kasuya (Japan)
- Reo Takamatsu (Japan)
- Yuki Takami (Japan)
- Shinnosuke Ishizaka (Japan)
- Hajime Sakauchi (Japan)
- Yamato Fujiwara (Japan)
- Masaki Iida (Japan)
- Shuji Kotani (Japan)
- Yuki Yamaguchi (Japan)
3A
3A has been improving at a fast pace, and the times when just being able to throw double-trapeze were enough to be competitive are long gone. Almost all of the competitors in the 3A wildcard round are Japanese, but Ayoun Kuo from Taiwan managed to squeeze into the next round!
- Yuto Yamaguchi (Japan)
- Takumi Yasumoto (Japan)
- Shoto Yamamoto (Japan)
- Sora Tahira (Japan)
- Ayoun Kuo (Taiwan)
- Takayuki Namba (Japan)
4A
There are a lot of people who want Rei Iwakura’s spot as king of offstring! No less than forty-two players competed in this division, including a handful from the world’s 4A elite! Ben Conde, Bryan Figueroa, and Naoto Okada had no trouble making it to the preliminary round, while two-time World Champion Eiji Okuyama, and Atsushi Yamada both failed to make it through in this tough division.
- Yuki Nishisako (Japan)
- Shuji Kinoshita (Japan)
- Ben Conde (United States)
- Bryan Figueroa (United States)
- Sota Maeda (Japan)
- Naoto Okada (Japan)
- Keita Kido (Japan)
- Koyo Hashimoto (Japan)
- Renta Motoyama (Japan)
- Ryo Oishi (Japan)
- Kei Hashimoto (Japan)
- Tomohiko Zanka (Japan)
- Yohei Kagawa (Japan)
5A
Counterweight is the contest’s smallest division, and while the number of contestants was small, we are super excited about the players who are competing, and even though 2004 World Champion Makoto Numagami was unable to make it through, the wildcard ranking is led by two equally legendary names: Hiroyasu “Pon” Ishihara, and 2001 World Champion Shingo Terada!
- Hiroyasu Ishihara (Japan)
- Shingo Terada (Japan)
- Shohei Nishio (Japan)
- Kazuma Miyakawa (Japan)
- Tatsunori Yoshiba (Japan)
The full list for 2A-5A can be found here.
Stay tuned for more updates from the greatest contest ever!