Skills stack up

AN EARLY Father’s Day present was gifted to Ty Hallam as he became a child-parent Asian Open sport stacking champion with his daughter Molly.
The gifted sport stacking duo, from Cranbourne North, excel in their beloved sport – requiring intricate cup formations be assembled and disassembled rapidly – and won their way through to a pair of finals at the Asian Open, which was held in Chinese Taipei from 22-24 August.
Athletes from across the Asia-Pacific region – including the best of the region’s stackers from China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand among others – took to the stage to stack fast and stop the clock.
The father/daughter combination stacked their way to a gold medal in the child-parent doubles – slamming down the cups and stopping the clock at 10.278 seconds.
“In child-parent doubles we were the number one ranked team in Asia, which was obviously what we set out to achieve after we finished third at the world championships,” Hallam said. “We’re now Asian champions, which is absolutely brilliant.
Narrowly missing out on their second gold medal for the championship, the duo were edged out by .01 of a second in the 19+ open doubles and Ty admits his mistake proved costly.
“We won the Open doubles silver medal – where one stacker is over the age of 18 and one stacker is under the age of 18,” Hallam said.
“We’re not disappointed in the silver medal, but disappointed in the result.
“I looked at the video last night that they sent through and I made a mistake that probably cost us 0.7 of a second and the Chinese only beat us by .01 of a second.
“We’re happy with silver but, realistically, it could have been gold.”
Their individual results might not have resulted in more additions to the trophy cabinet but the pair smashed all Australian records in their respective divisions to put their names on top of the national rankings heading into this year’s nationals and aim towards the World Championships in Montreal next year.
“That’s our next goal – we want gold at the World Championships in doubles child-parent at worlds,” Hallam said.
There was no downtime for the stacking stars, with the pair competing at the Victorian Speed Stacking Championships at Berwick Fields Primary School on Saturday.
The event had nearly 100 stackers testing their mettle to qualify for the nationals, which was held in October this year at Berwick Fields.
For more information on sport stacking, head to the World Sport Stacking Association Australia website at www.wssaaustralia.com.