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The World Yo-Yo Contest is the culminating yo-yo competition of the worldwide competitive circuit and is considered the most prestigious yo-yo competition in the world. The winner of this competition in any of the six championship divisions is deemed the World Yo-Yo Champion—the only event to award such a title. The contest attracts competitors from all over the world, and an increasingly large number of spectators. The competition is currently run by the International Yo-Yo Federation (IYYF) and the respective host nation's national organization. As of 2015, 33 countries have fed into the World Yo-Yo Contest from their respective national yo-yo contests. Last week, the 2017 World Yo-Yo Championship was held in Reykjavík, Iceland. And as in years past, watching these performers, including world champion Shu Takada, can only lead you to a single conclusion: these competitors were probably born with yo-yos attached to their arms. Twitter Click "Next" to read more. Shu Takada is the 2017 2A (Two Handed Looping style) World Yoyo Champion. The 2017 World Yo-Yo Championship was held on August 10-12th at the Harpa Conference Center in Reykjavík, Iceland. How else could someone ever get this good at playing with yo-yos unless they had to spend every waking moment of their life dealing with spinning tops tethered to strings at the end of each arm? Would it have been an easy childhood? No. But at least once a year these afflicted folk get to show off what they’ve learned at this championship. So how did this championship come about? Click "Next" to find out. A Greek vase painting from 500 BC shows a boy playing with a yo-yo. Greek records from the period describe toys made out of wood, metal, or painted terra cotta (fired clay). The terra cotta disks were used to ceremonially offer the toys of youth to certain gods when a child came of age—discs of other materials were used for actual play. Wikipedia The Birth of the Modern Yo-Yo After the yo-yo was introduced to the United States, it spread to Mexico—with an even prettier version of the original concept. Pinterest In 1928, Pedro Flores, a Filipino immigrant to the United States, opened the Yo-yo Manufacturing Company in Santa Barbara, California. The business started with a dozen handmade toys; by November 1929, Flores was operating two additional factories in Los Angeles and Hollywood, which altogether employed 600 workers and produced 300,000 units daily. Pinterest The principal distinction between the Filipino design popularized by Flores and more primitive yo-yos is in the way the yo-yo is strung. In older (and some remaining inexpensive) yo-yo designs, the string is tied to the axle using a knot. With this technique, the yo-yo just goes back-and-forth; it returns easily, but it is impossible to make it sleep. In Flores's design, one continuous piece of string, double the desired length, is twisted around something to produce a loop at one end which is fitted around the axle. Also termed a looped slip-string, this seemingly minor modification allows for a far greater variety and sophistication of motion, thanks to increased stability and suspension of movement during free spin. Shortly thereafter, in 1929, an entrepreneur named Donald F. Duncan (sound familiar?) recognized the potential of this new fad and purchased the Flores yo-yo Corporation and all its assets, including the Flores name, which was transferred to the new company in 1932. The name "Yo-yo" was first registered in 1932 as a trademark by Sam Dubiner in Vancouver, Canada. In 1932, Swedish Kalmartrissan yo-yos started to be manufactured as well.In 1946, the Duncan Toys Company opened a yo-yo factory in Luck, Wisconsin. Click "Next" to read what the birth of the Yo-Yo also created... The First World Yo-Yo Contest In 1932, the very first World Yo-Yo Contest was held in England, where Harvey Lowe won the title of World Champion. yoyo.com Although other, similar contests were held before 1932 were claimed to be "World Championships", they were sponsored by specific manufacturers to run as promotions for their products and are not generally recognized as genuine world contests. Click "Next" to read next in the history of this peculiar world competition. In 1950, Cheerio held a large North American contest, which was not considered a world contest, yet one of the winners was known to refer to himself as a "World Champion". The Cheerio Yo-Yo & Bo-Lo Company Ltd. was actually a yo-yo manufacturer with its origins in Canada. Cheerio was owned by Wilf Schlee, who in addition to this Cheerio company, also owned other Yo-Yo companies such as Hi-Ker and Festival. As one of the largest yo-yo manufacturers in the 1930's and 1940's, Cheerio employed a number of demonstrators, including Harvey Lowe, which not only traveled Canada, but also parts of Europe to promote the line. During this period Cheerio was rumored to have insured the hands of some of their demonstrators for $150,000.00. Click "Next" to find out what the yo-yo industry was like in the swinging '60s... 1960s Comeback Declining sales after the Second World War inspired Duncan to launch a comeback campaign for his trademarked "Yo-Yo" in 1962 with a series of television advertisements. In a trademark case in 1965, a federal court's appeals ruled in favor of the Royal Tops Company, determining that yo-yo had become a part of common speech and that Duncan no longer had exclusive rights to the term. As a result of the expenses incurred by this legal battle as well as other financial pressures, the Duncan family sold the company name and associated trademarks in 1968 to Flambeau, Inc, who had manufactured Duncan's plastic models since 1955. yoyonews.com In 1962, Duncan had 32 demonstrators on the road whom it claimed were "World Yo-Yo Champions" of which many had never actually entered any yo-yo contest. How about Yo-Yo's in the 1970s? How about the 80's and onward? Click "Next" to find out. Future Generations Of Yo-Yo As popularity spread through the 1970s and 1980s, there were a number of innovations in yo-yo technology, primarily regarding the connection between the string and the axle. In 1979, dentist and yo-yo celebrity Tom Kuhn patented the “No Jive 3-in-1” yo-yo, creating the world's first "take-apart" yo-yo, which enabled yo-yo players to change the axle. Swedish bearing company SKF briefly manufactured novelty yo-yos with ball bearings in 1984. In 1990, Kuhn introduced the SB-2 yo-yo that had an aluminum transaxle, making it the first successful ball-bearing yo-yo. In all transaxle yo-yos, ball bearings significantly reduce friction when the yo-yo is spinning, enabling longer and more complex tricks. Subsequent yo-yoers used this ability to their advantage, creating new tricks that had not been possible with fixed-axle designs.There are many new types of ball bearings in the market which deviate from the original design and/or material of the standard stainless steel ball bearing. For example, a certain type of bearing has an inward facing curved surface, to prevent the string from rubbing on the sides of the yo-yo, which would cause unwanted friction when performing intricate string tricks. Other manufacturers replicate this with a similar inwardly curved surface but use minor modifications. Some high-end bearings use ceramic composites in the balls of the bearing, to reduce internal friction, again making for a smoother spinning yo-yo. Click "Next" to find out what happened next in the history of the Yo-Yo World Championship! In 1972, a yo-yo contest referred to as the "World Yo-Yo Championship" was held in Toronto, Canada, where it was won by professional yo-yo demonstrator Bunny Martin. However, this was not a genuine world contest. In 1992, after about a thirty some-odd year hiatus of the championship, Dale Oliver brought back the World Yo-Yo Contest in its current format, with the first running held at the 1992 International Jugglers' Association (IJA) convention in Montreal, Canada. Watch Dale show off his moves in the video below. Since 2000, the World Yo-Yo Contest was run by Greg Cohen in Orlando, Florida, USA. In 2013, the World Yo-Yo Contest committee announced the contest would be taken over by the then-newly-formed International Yo-Yo Federation and the contest would move between the Americas, Europe and Asia each year. Considering that there were those within the community who wished for the contest to be held in places with more exposure than at the Rosen Plaza Hotel's Grand Ballroom in Orlando, Florida, this was readily accepted. yoyo.com Click "Next" to read more. The 2014 contest took place in Prague, Czech Republic, the 2015 contest was held in Tokyo, Japan, and in 2016, it was held in Cleveland, Ohio in the United States. The cycle of where the contest would be held would repeat between Europe, Asia, and the United States. In this way, the World Yo-Yo Contest could truly be considered an international competition. In November 2015, it was announced on YoYoNews that the 2017 World Yo-Yo Contest would be held and hosted in Reykjavik, Iceland. The 2018 Worlds will be held in Shanghai, China. Source: (Sploid via The Awesomer, Wikipedia)