A thought just occurred to me. While many people were disappointed with the Worlds Finals Line Up In the long term, will this years results improve the standard at US Nationals, Regionals and contests around the world?

Let me explain. The level of competition in Worlds prelims this year was extremely high, more players than ever rose to the occasion with excellently tailored one minute performances. It seems now that nearly everyone understands what it takes to get into Finals. Serious players are getting their 1 minutes clicked months prior to the contest in order to see how they stack up and how to improve. When prelims were first introduced in place of compulsory tricks this was not the case, top players were generally considered shoe-ins for Finals and everyone else just competed for the last few spots (I believe Yuuki Spencer only planned his 1 minute freestyle in 2007 the night before he had to perform it live). Now it seems that the level of play is so close across the world that 1 minute is just not long enough for the cream to rise to the top. One mistake and you’re cooked.

So, does this mean that going forward players with ambitions of placing at Worlds will view the National seed to be an easier route to finals than prelims? It’s possible. If so, we could see the level of intensity at US Nationals get kicked up a notch as Yuuki, Augie, Mark, Anthony, Chris and all the other contenders try to secure their spot for Worlds next year early.

Furthermore, this could filter down through the contest system to regional contests. Before players can compete for the title at Nationals, they’re going to want to secure a spot by winning their respective regional contests. Could we be seeing the end of players holding back tricks at small contest, or simply not attending them at all? Is it time to go big or go home?

This doesn’t apply solely to the US, if you take another look at the 1A Finals you’ll notice that not a single European player who was not already seeded qualified for Finals. This is somewhat of a trend and now the level of competition is higher than ever, European hopefuls might have to face the prospect that their National contest is their ONLY realistic shot at the big stage. I know from personal experience that a shot at showing 3 minutes of your stuff on the World stage is a big deal for European players, who generally don’t get a lot of attention in the US & Japan the other 364 days of the year. Hopefully this will motivate the “nearly men” around Europe, the ones who have lived in the shadow of a long term National champion, to re-double their efforts and go for the gold.

Thoughts?

P.S Watch out for this topic being covered further in the upcoming YoYoNation.com Vodcasts.

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