Footbag World Championships – Sideline Events

During the online version of the 2021 Footbag World Championships, a range of sideline events were held in order to encourage beginner players or those who choose not to compete in the main events.

The Chinese footbag players made their presence felt, with an excellent rate of participation, while a number of players who did not enter the freestyle events joined in the action. 20 different players from 5 countries joined in to at least one of the sideline events. The events included one and five minute consecutive kicks, a beginner request contest, a scene showcase and a school showcase.

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One minute consecutives

The players had to kick the bag as many times as possible within one minute. China’s Zheng XinPing was the winner with 128 kicks within the allocated 60 seconds.

You can see the full standings here. The one minute version was designed as an accessible event and was the most popular of the sideline events.

Rank	Name	Country	Score

1	Zheng XinPing	China	128
2	Fei YongBao	China	127
3	Chan TinYee	China	122
4	Yu QingHai	China	120
5	Daniel Boyle	Australia	104
6	Andrew Rice	Ireland	102
7	Chen WeiTao	China	96
8	Weng HuaBin	China	93
9	Hu ShiWei	China	92
10	Justin Blotsky	USA	90
11	Tan YaoTang	China	89
12	Zhou Jie	China	84
13	Allen Sneed	USA	80
14	Taku Miura	Japan	67

5 minute consecutives

Fei YongBao, also from China, topped the five minute scores with 518 points. As per official rules, points were deducted for drops and fouls including upper body contacts and not changing feet. Ken Somolinos, who featured in the finals in the freestyle events, came in second place.

Rank	Name	Country	Score
1	Fei YongBao	China	518
2	Ken Somolinos	USA	512
3	Zheng XinPing	China	500
4	Daniel Boyle	Australia	488
5	Justin Blotsky	USA	459
6	Zhou Jie	China	364

Beginner Request Challenge

Congratulations to those who completed the combos for the beginner request challenge.

Taku Miura – Japan

Fei YongBao – China

Hu Shi Wei – China

Chen Wei Tao – China

Weng HuaBin – China

Wang ShuYang – China

Scene Showcase

This event gave players a chance to show what’s happening for them lately. With the pandemic still disrupting gatherings, we had a number of individuals or small groups submit their entries.

Dustin Rhodes & Brian Sherrill – Mountain View, California, USA

If you are a footbag player on Instagram, you will be well aware of these two great players. Both have been playing for a long time and each have a unique style. They are showing some fun skills together.

Micah Cox – Durango, Colorado, USA

Micah Cox is bringing out some Allen Haggett vibes with his moves up and over the picnic table. Great flow!

Allen Sneed – Greeneville, Tennessee, USA

Allen Sneed has featured in a number of events in the online competitions – here he shows his stuff, with a potential future footbag player in the background.

Adam Wade – Atlanta, Georgia, USA

Some great friendly hacky moves from the host city of the 1996 Olympics. Looks like this crew is having a great time kicking.

Taku Miura – Japan

Taku Miura has been a great contributor to the footbag presence in Japan – here he is showing some great places to play footbag.

School Showcase

We just had two entries for the school showcase, and they are from two of the hardest workers in footbag over recent years – Taishi Ishida in Japan and Bruce Li in China. Aside from all their promotional work, both players made the finals in the routines event.

With players like this growing the game, there are great positives in the future of the sport.

Great thanks to everybody who participated in the Sideline Events of the World Footbag Championships. Some prizes will be delivered by the World Footbag Association to the winners. For more information and results, please visit the official website.

Tags: consecutive kicks, Footbag, World Footbag Championships