USA Diabolo Association Competition 2025 in Metuchen, New Jersey

By JoAnn Ireland

The USA Diabolo Association (USADA) hosted the USA Diabolo Competition (USADC). The USADA’s mission is to grow diabolo into a sport that more people can enjoy across the United States and through the USADA, they hope to encourage players of all skill levels to connect with one another and to share their collective passion for diabolo. The USADA’s vision is to provide resources for United States diabolo players to advance their growth as well as work together with other players through events and competitions; in collaboration with the International Diabolo Association (IDA) and other foreign diabolo communities, USADA will connect their members with fellow players locally and abroad.

The USADC took place in Metuchen, New Jersey (population estimated to be approximately 15,000) from August 1 – 3, 2025; this was the third annual competition that USADA organized. While you might not have heard of Metuchen, it is very easy to get to. Metuchen is about 30 miles southwest of New York City and about 70 miles northeast of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is conveniently only three miles from Metropark, NJ, which has an Amtrak station along its Northeast corridor that makes it only about 40 minutes from midtown Manhattan and about one hour from downtown Philadelphia, and you can extrapolate from there if you live along or near the East Coast. Metuchen is also about 20 miles southwest of Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR), a very large airport.

Graham Lo, USADA President introduced the events on Saturday. A special guest in attendance was Yi-Ju Wang, Director of the Culture Center of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office. The competitions on Saturday and Sunday took place at the Sportsplex at Metuchen, where they have a variety of indoor sports fields / courts for rent as well as party rooms, a concession stand, and plenty of parking. The Sportsplex motto is very appropriately, “Get active, be social, have fun;” it was a really beautiful facility, which fit very well with USADA’s mission and vision. On Saturday the USADA had three courts rented, each measuring 70-feet by 50-feet, so each one of the three courts is about 75% of the size of a regulation-sized basketball court. USADC used about one-half of that total space for the competition and spectator / competitor seating (there were ample folding chairs), and the other half for practice / play space. Out of respect for the competitors, practice / play was limited to occurring before the competitions or during 15-minute breaks between the competitions. On Saturday they had over five hours allotted for competition and on Sunday it was scheduled to be over six hours.

My parents and I attended on Saturday and we had an absolutely great time. I can perform a handful of tricks with the diabolo, as can my father, and I do enjoy watching diabolo performance skills, so there was plenty for me to be entertained and impressed with at this competition. For that reason, my description of the skills performed will be rather minimal as it’s not my area of expertise, but again, I was thoroughly entertained and impressed. I didn’t take the opportunity to visit the surrounding area of Metuchen, there were a limited number of hours available and I really wanted to watch as much of the competitions as possible, but from what I could tell, downtown Metuchen looked very nice and would have easily kept me well fed with numerous restaurant options.

The competitions on Saturday were for individuals under 14, teams under 18, and teams over 18, as well as the “1v1 Battle.” Very beautifully designed black t-shirts and tote bags were also for sale at the competition and donations were also welcome. Sponsors of the USADC also included: the Association of New Jersey Chinese Schools, the Chinese Taipei Traditional Sports & Games Association, the International Diabolo Association (IDA), the Northern New Jersey Chinese Association, and Sundia.

In the individual and teams competitions, individuals could compete for 2 to 4 minutes, and teams of 2 to 8 members could compete for 3 to 5.5 minutes. Competitors must be residents of the United States and registration was $50 for the individual competition and $100 for the group competition. The photographs below are for the competitors who were under 14 years old, and for the group competitions, where competitors were either under 18, or over 18 years old.

The skills presented at the individual and group competitions were incredible. The individuals performed with up to three diabolos each, and some group members also performed with up to four diabolos each. I don’t often get to see group diabolo interaction, so that was especially a treat. The groups often showed great passing skills and a few also incorporated acrobatics into their performance. The USADC “Iv1 Battle,” which was new to this year’s USADC, took place after the individual and group competitions.

At the USADC “1v1 Battle” there were 19 competitors and for the first round, the qualifying round, each competitor had 30 seconds to showcase what they would like. After all competitors performed, the judges selected the eight best competitors. In addition, there were QR codes in the competition space and each audience member could also vote for the best eight competitors, which was a really fun way to encourage audience engagement and audience members were rather excited about the opportunity to vote. The audience votes were aggregated and similarly, the judges votes were aggregated. Those results were then combined (weighting 50 / 50 for the judges and audience) to then form a ranking of the eight best competitors who would go on to the “Knockouts.” For the “Knockouts,” each of the eight competitors were paired bracket-style and got two rounds of 30 seconds, the best competitor was selected after each knockout by the judges, resulting in four competitors who would go on to the “Semifinals.”

For the semifinals, each of the four competitors were again paired and got two rounds of 30 seconds with the judges immediately selecting the two winning individuals who would go on to the “Finals.” The audience definitely wanted to see a bonus competition to determine the third place winner, Alejandro Feliciano. For the “Finals” each competitor got three rounds of 30 seconds. It was such a tight competition for the finals that the judges wanted to see one more round of 45 seconds. The first place winner was Alexander Tai and second place went to Peng‑An Ang, their photos are below!

Saturday also included a Judges Showcase performance and a very special invited guest performance, who was also a competition judge, by 21 year-old Ching-Yuan Tang of Taiwan. Ching-Yuan Tang recently won the silver medal in the January 2025 44^th Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain as part of the team Fly, and in 2024 was the champion of the Malaysia International Diabolo Tournament in the 1D bearing category. I would be amiss without also noting that IJA gold medal winner, Delaney Bayles, in the juniors (2015), teams (2019), and individuals (2024) also won a silver medal as part of a team with Danil Lysenko of the Ukraine at the 44^th Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain. I had the opportunity to speak with Ching-Yuan Tang, he said he had options when he was very young to study various sports such as gymnastics and table tennis, and was put in diabolo. Also, after this event, he would be performing at the European Juggling Convention in the Netherlands, and also in Japan. Ching-Yuan Tang also graciously participated in a just for fun and fun-filled, “1v1 Battle,” with many of the USADC competitors. This was followed by another incredible performance by Ching-Yuan Tang.

Video of Ching-Yuan Tang demonstrating his skills at the USADC 2025

I didn’t attend the USADC events on Friday or Sunday; however, Friday’s events were at Roosevelt Park in nearby Edison, NJ, which included a collaborative workshop that also allowed spectators and competitors to get to know each other. I thought that the idea sounded like a great way to start the weekend of diabolo competitions. USADA also had a group rate set up at a nearby hotel in Edison, New Jersey for those who were staying for the weekend’s events, which was less than 1.5 miles from the competitions venue. The competitions on Sunday were for individuals 14 to 17 years old, and individuals over 18 years old.

The USADC was an absolutely great event to attend, definitely one I would recommend to check out next year. The USADA President and Founder is Graham Lo of New York City and Board Members include: Jason Pao of Seattle, Bryan Tam of Boston, Ryan Lin of Boston, and Andrew Sun-Yan of Montville, New Jersey. In addition, the USADA Creative Director is Joy Deng of Houston.

Written and photographed by JoAnn Ireland.

JoAnn Ireland is a longtime hobbyist juggler who especially prefers juggling beanbags, joggles (running and juggling), and occasionally rides a unicycle. She is grateful for the opportunity to have been able to attend many IJA and regional juggling festivals.

Links:

USA Diabolo Association (USADA)

USA Diabolo Competition (USADC)

USADA Registered Teams

USADA Instagram

USADA Facebook

USADA YouTube