Sport stacking

Sport stacking, also called cup stacking or speed stacking, is an individual and team sport in which competitors race to stack and unstack specially designed plastic cups, usually nine to twelve of them, into set pyramid sequences as quickly as possible. The cups carry small ventilation holes that reduce air resistance so a stack can be built and collapsed rapidly. The activity traces to 1981, when Wayne Godinet introduced cup stacking to children at a Boys and Girls Club in Oceanside, California, first using paper cups before switching to vented plastic ones. It reached a national audience in 1990 when young stackers appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Colorado physical education teacher Bob Fox subsequently helped formalize the activity into a timed sport, co-developing the StackMat electronic timer and founding the World Cup Stacking Association in 2001, renamed the World Sport Stacking Association in 2005.