I prepared a draft for this year online contest. I am posting it to get feedback from players before submitting it to the ITSA International Board.
The cost of entering has not been discussed yet by the ITSA Board of Directors.
The main difference with respect to last year is the scoring by judges instead of peer judging.
The second big change is in the Traditional Top division. I increased the performance score and explicitly mention that the representation of cultural top traditions is a criteria.
I added a Woman and Youth divisions/titles.
I also made small changes and added clarifications.
By the way, I would like to add a koma ladder, depending on the feedback from Japan.
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A. Eligibility
1. Any player in the world can compete by submitting a video. Registration to compete is $* USD for ITSA full members. If not a current ITSA member, registration is $* USD. Registration fee may be waived to those who request it because of economic hardship.
2. Players will be able to compete in more than one division with just one registration. Players that compete in one or more freestyles cannot compete in the Sport Ladder.
3. Players need to register as competitors at least 2 weeks before the video submission deadline.
B. Deadline
Players will upload online their videos before the deadline of Sunday, November 7th, 2021, local midnight.
C. Divisions
There will be the following divisions, provided that a minimum of 5 competitors enter each one:
1- Open freestyle (World Spintop Champion title)
2- Traditional top freestyle
3- Sport trick ladder
4- Woman freestyle
5- Youth freestyle
D. Video Upload
1. The freestyle performances or the ladder tricks will be recorded from a single camera in one continuous take. It is strongly recommended that it is recorded in landscape format. The quality should be good enough to see the tricks clearly.
2. Music can be live or added afterwards. However, it is strongly recommended that if music is added, live sound is also left and it is not completely covered by the music.
3. One performance per player per division entered will be uploaded to Youtube.com or Vimeo.com and published so it has a day stamp before the deadline. But it is recommended that it remains “unlisted” until the deadline. If entering more than one division, different routines should be submitted, except for Women and Youth titles.
4. Competitors should send a link to the video to the Judging Panel before the deadline.
SEND LINK TO worlds2021@spintops.org
5. It is recommended that the official logo should be printed and placed somewhere in view of the camera. If this is not possible it can be replaced by a sign saying 2021 World Spintop Online Contest. If this is not possible, it can be added as a title at the start of the video (it doesn’t count towards the 3 minute duration).
6. A review panel will first determine if the freestyles are of the minimum quality required for a World contest, and that they don’t break any rules, or for any reason cannot represent the contest (including inappropriate lyrics in the music). Routines found at fault will be disqualified.
7. The freestyles that are not disqualified will be posted by ITSA on its website no later than three days after the upload deadline.
8. By submitting a video to the contest, the player transfers the ownership and all the copyrights of the video submission to ITSA. However, ITSA grants the players the permission to use their contest videos in their social media after the contest is over, as long as the world contest logo or title is not removed.
E. Open Freestyle Rules
1. It consists of a freestyle to music with a duration of up to 3 minutes, but not less than 2 minutes. A routine longer than 3 minutes (plus a 5 second margin) will be automatically disqualified. The video itself might be a little longer, showing a few seconds before the start and after the end of the routine.
2. Any spinning top will be permitted, including fixed-tip, bearing-tip and one-way bearing tip, as well as over-sized tops. The number of spintops used or available for back-up is not limited, but the player cannot exit the view of the camera to retrieve them. All tops used must be wound by the player, no assistance will be permitted.
F. Traditional Style Freestyle Rules
1. It consists of a freestyle to music with a duration of up to 3 minutes, but not less than 2 minutes. A routine longer than 3 minutes (plus a 5 second margin) will be automatically disqualified. The video itself might be a little longer, showing a few seconds before the start and after the end of the routine.
2. A traditional top should be used, defined as one with the body made of solid wood (not hollowed) and that has a fixed tip made of metal. Some other variations that are traditional in a certain spinning top culture, such as a metal weight ring for komas, are acceptable. The competitors should send pictures of their traditional tops for approval by the Judging Panel. Modifications of the shape of the tip are allowed. The number of tops used or available for back-up is not limited, but the player cannot exit the view of the camera to retrieve them. All tops used must be wound by the player, no assistance will be permitted.
G. Sport ladder
1. The player will try to complete as many tricks as possible from the official ladder trick list available here.
2. Will perform the tricks in order. If the player tries a trick and is not successful, it counts as a miss. Skipping a trick also counts as a miss.
3. Will have up to two misses forgiven. The player can either retry the trick or pass to the next one. On the third miss the ladder is finished.
4. The players will not take more than 15 seconds between tricks.
5. Can change tops between tricks but has to use a fixed tip when the trick rules require it.
H. Woman Freestyle
1. Female players can have a freestyle considered for both the Open Freestyle Division and the Woman Freestyle Division or they can select to enter it to just one division.
2. Scoring will be identical to the Open Freestyle, except that for scoring the Woman Freestyle it will be normalized with respect to just the other women entering this division. So a freestyle entered in both the Open and Women divisions will have one raw score but two different normalized scores.
3. This will not be a World title.
H. Youth Freestyle
1. Players 13 years old and under can have a freestyle routine considered for both the Open Freestyle Division and the Youth Freestyle Division or they can select to enter it to just one division.
2. Scoring will be identical to the Open Freestyle, except that for scoring the Youth Freestyle it will be normalized with respect to just the other youth players entering this division. So a freestyle entered in both the Open and Youth divisions will have one raw score but two different normalized scores.
3. This will not be a World title.
H. Open Freestyle Judging
1. If there is a large number of participants, the judges may divide the routines between them, with at least 2 judges scoring each freestyle. In this case the highest 10 scores will then be scored by all the rest of the judges.
2. Routines will be given a technical score of up to 85 points and a performance score of up to 15 points.
3. The raw technical score will be calculated by adding the difficulty, originality and risk of each trick completed in the routine. It’s the judge decision if a combo trick qualifies as two tricks or one more difficult trick. In order to promote exceptional tricks compared to quantity of tricks, the judges may give double points to tricks that are spectacular and make the routine memorable. A typical score range is 1 to 6 points per trick, but because the scores of each individual judge will be normalized, it’s not important what scale the judges use, as long as they are consistent from player to player.
4. The raw technical scores of each judge will be normalized so the player that has the highest normalized score for that judge has 85 points. Therefore, the scores of the other players will be divided by the highest raw score and multiplied by 85.
5. The performance score will be assigned for showmanship and overall quality and interest of the performance. It will be normalized for each judge so the highest score is 15.
6. The final score will be the sum of the normalized technical and normalized performance scores, averaged over all the judges.
7. The ITSA World Freestyle Spintop Champion will be the player who gets the maximum final score. A tie is possible.
I. Traditional Style Freestyle Judging
1. If there is a large number of participants, the judges may divide the routines between them, with at least 2 judges scoring each freestyle. In this case the highest 10 scores will then be scored by all the rest of the judges.
2. Routines will be given a technical score of up to 70 points and a traditional performance score of up to 30 points.
3. The raw technical score will be calculated by adding the difficulty, originality and risk of each trick completed in the routine. It’s the judge decision if a combo trick qualifies as two tricks or one more difficult trick. In order to promote exceptional tricks compared to quantity of tricks, the judges may give double points to tricks that are spectacular and make the routine memorable. A typical score range is 1 to 6 points per trick, but because the scores of each individual judge will be normalized, it’s not important what scale the judges use, as long as they are consistent from player to player.
4. The traditional style score will be given for showmanship and overall quality and interest of the performance. As part of the evaluation it will be taken into account how the selected cultural tradition of top play is represented. However, it is expected that the player will expand on traditional performances by creating new tricks and novel variations.
5. The raw technical scores of each judge will be normalized so the player that has the highest normalized score for that judge has 70 points. Therefore, the scores of the other players will be divided by the highest raw score and multiplied by 70.
6. The performance score will be normalized for each judge so the highest score is 30.
7. The final score will be the sum of the normalized technical and normalized performance scores, averaged over all the judges.
8. The ITSA Traditional Top Freestyle Champion will be the player who gets the maximum final score. A tie is possible.
J. Sport ladder judging
1. The completion of the tricks will be verified by judges assigned by ITSA.
2. The highest trick completed is the score of the player.
3. Of two players with the same highest trick completed, the one with the highest first miss will win.
4. If two players are still tied after 1 and 2, the one that completed the tricks in less time (from first throw to completion of last trick) wins.
5. If the player continues the ladder but the judges determine that the trick was not completed successfully, it will be considered a skipped trick, as long as the player had a free miss remaining.
K. Award Ceremony
The award ceremony will take place live on Saturday November 13th at 13:00 UTC (7:00 Los Angeles, 15:00 Paris, 23:00 Tokyo).
At a minimum, trophies and medals will be sent to the first 3 placements in each division. The organizers may announce other prizes.
L. Situations not covered by the rules
The Review Panel, selected by ITSA, will make decisions on situations not covered by these rules.
