Eligibility
1. Any player in the world can compete by submitting a video. Registration is free for ITSA members. If not a current full ITSA member, registration is $10 USD. In especial circumstances, registration fee might be waived to those who demonstrate economic hardship.

2. Players will be able to compete in more than one division with just one registration.

3. Players need to register as competitors by May 26th.

B. Deadline
Players will upload online their videos before the deadline of Sunday, June 1st, 2025, local midnight.

C. Divisions
There will be the following divisions, provided that a minimum of 5 competitors enter each one:
1- Open freestyle (World Online Spintop Title)
2- Women freestyle
3- Youth freestyle
4- Artistic showcase

D. Video Upload
(See special rules for Artistic showcase on its section)
1. The freestyle performances will be recorded from a single camera in one continuous take. The competitor should remain in the field of view the whole time. 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 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. Players entering the Youth and Women divisions have the option to also nominate the same video to the Open division.
4. Competitors should send a link to the video to the Judging Panel before the deadline.
SEND LINK TO worlds2025@spintops.org
5. The official logo should appear on the video. It can be printed and placed somewhere in view of the camera. If this is not possible, it can be replaced by a sign saying 2025 World Spintop Online Contest. Or 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. The player grants ITSA the irrevocable and unlimited right, without compensation, to use the submitted video to promote the association goals.

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.
3. The winner will be the 2025 ITSA World Online Freestyle Champion.

F. Women 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. The winner will be the 2025 ITSA Online Women Freestyle Champion.

G. 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. The winner will be the 2025 ITSA Online Youth Freestyle Champion.

H. Artistic Showcase
1. Teams from 1 to 4 players can participate (at least one needs to be Full ITSA member).
2. The theme of the routine should have a clear relation to spintop play but this can be interpreted very creatively. There is no limit on props used.
3. The performance will consist of a routine between 2 and 5 minutes long.
4. The video should be taken in 1 take, with no editing, including audio. It should be recorded in landscape mode.
5. There should be at least one performer always on camera.
6. The performance should be appropriate for public of all ages.

I. 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 after normalization 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. 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. 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. Repeated identical tricks will only count the first 2 times they are performed.
5. It’s the judge decision if a combo trick qualifies as two tricks or one more difficult trick.
6. 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.
7. The performance score will be assigned for showmanship and overall quality and interest of the performance. Each judge will provide a raw score between 1 (no significant artistic value) and 15 (outstanding artistic value) which will not be normalized.
8. The final score will be the sum of the normalized technical and raw performance scores, averaged over all the judges.
9. The 2025 ITSA Word Online Freestyle Online Champion will be the player who gets the maximum final score.
A tie is possible.
Note, however, the 2025 ITSA World Spintop Champion, will be the winner of the in-person contest.

J. Artistic Showcase Judging
1. Three judges selected by ITSA, not necessary spintop players.
2. The judges will consider the overall quality of the act as performance art and it’s appeal to the general public, plus the importance of spinning tops in creating the performance and communicating it’s message.
3. Each judge will rank each performance from 1st to last. The first place will be given 1 point, the second 2 points, etc.
4. After summing all the scores, the performance with the lowest score will be the 2025 ITSA Online Artistic Showcase Winner. A tie is possible.
5. In addition, an Audience Award might also be implemented by poll voting on the iTopSpin.com forum.

K. Award Ceremony
The award ceremony will take place live on Sunday June 15th at 14:00 UTC (7:00 Los Angeles, 8:00 Mexico City, 9:00 Bogota, 16:00 Paris, 23:00 Tokyo).
Trophies and medals will be sent to the first 3 placements in each division.
ITSA will try to help the best placing players to attend the in-person contest (location to be announced) with travel grants. This will depend on the availability of funds and situation of the players and it’s not guaranteed.
The organizers may announce other prizes.

L. Seeding for in-person World Contest
Players that place well on the Open division will be seeded directly to the finals of the in-person ITSA World Spintop Contest (location to be announced) and will not have to compete in the preliminaries. The exact number of players will be determined by the management of that contest.

L. Situations not covered by the rules
The Review Panel, selected by ITSA, will make decisions on situations not covered by these rules.