Over-40 Freestyle

Yo-Yo is one of the few sports which is not affected by the contestant’s age or physical strength. There are many former National and World Champions who were over 40-50 when they won their title. Today, more and more parents, as well as people of older generations, are playing yo-yo all over the world.

However, the number of older yo-yo players are still very few compared to the number of 10-30 year old yo-yo players. This Freestyle event is designed to spotlight and showcase the talent of those who may be a minority in the community for now, but definitely deserve to be seen and amaze the audience on stage.

Starting this year, we are splitting Over-40 into two classes; Master Class and Open Class. With the recent increase of veteran and champion level contestants from the late 90s yo-yo boom moving into their 40s, we wanted to make space for them while still respecting the position of players who started yo-yoing later in life, protecting the original aim of this freestyle exhibition. Please read below for guidelines on how Over-40 will be divided.

Competition Format

• Only players 40 years old or older can compete in this event (Born on August 20, 1983 or earlier)
• 2 minute freestyle
• Player may choose their own music
• Player must choose one style among 1A-5A
• Scoring rules are the same as 1A-5A
• Evaluation categories will be the same as the Semi-Final Round of 1A-5A
• We will adjust/normalize the clicker score difference among styles with a coefficient

Prelim (We decided there is No Prelim this year)

If we have 20 or more contestants (in each class) in this event, we will hold a Prelim round.

• Same rules as Prelim for 1A-5A
• 1 minute freestyle
• Evaluation categories will be the same as the Semi-Final Round of 1A-5A
• Player must choose one style among 1A-5A
• Scoring rules are the same as 1A-5A
• We will adjust/normalize the clicker score difference among styles with a coefficient

* Winning this freestyle event does not make the winner a “World Yo-Yo Champion.” Therefore, the contestants in this event are also welcome to compete in 1A-5A to aim for a World Title.

Normalization Among Different Styles

To eliminate the difference in raw clicker numbers among different styles, we will multiply the sum of positive and negative clickers of each judge with the following values.

NEW We will apply this adjustment before normalizing, so the highest score for TE will still stay 60.0 pts.

1A – 1.00
2A – 1.28
3A – 1.35
4A – 1.19
5A – 1.27

If a contestant fits any of the following, they will compete in MASTER CLASS.

• Has been a finalist at WYYC, Multi-National Contest (AP, EYYC, etc.), or National Contest in the past (*1)
• Has been a finalist in a Regional Contest more than twice in the past (*1)
• Has been the winner of Over-40 Freestyle at WYYC/OWYYC in the past

(*1)  Only “technical” championships like 1A-5A, & X Division are subject to this classification (Art & Performance Division or non-championships are not subject to be counted here).

OVER-40 OPEN CLASS

• All contestants who are over 40 and are not eligible to compete in MASTER CLASS