Pinoy kid is world sport stacking champ

A ten-year old Filipino boy holds not only one, but two world records in a new sport in the United States. Steven Purugganan of LongMeadow, Massachusetts  set two new world records at the World Sport Stacking Championships in Denver, Colorado on April 6. This was not the first time the young Pinoy had stunned the speed stacking world.

Sport stacking or speed stacking is a new sport that originated in Denver itself. It basically consists of stacking 12 regulation plastic cups in pre-determined sequences (pyramids of 3-3-3 or 3-6-3, for example) in the fastest time possible. Steven and his two older brothers are all in the top 10 in the world.

The Purugganan boys are children of Dan and Marivic Purugganan, who graduated from the Ateneo de Manila in the mid-1980’s before seeking their fortune in the US. Sixteen-year old sports fanatic Andrew, the eldest, caught a replay of the 2006 World Sport Stacking Championships on ESPN. He was hooked. Not long after, his brothers Brian (now 12) and Steven joined in on the fun.

“Using just regular plastic cups at home and watching the ESPN recording over and over again, they taught themselves how to up-stack and down-stack the 12 cups in the predetermined sequences,” explained Marivic in an e-mail to The STAR. “The learning process was fun and a test in eye-hand coordination – a welcome alternative to their usual pastimes of playing video games, swimming, baseball, basketball, soccer. They would literally spend hours trying to get faster, either racing against their own times, or against each other.”

But the boys were being hindered by the fact that the plastic party cups stuck together because they didn’t have holes to let air in. That’s when they researched and discovered www.worldsportstackingassociation.org, and bought the official Speedstacks cups.

For $30, Dan and Marivic bought a set of 12 competition cups, a mat, a timer, and an instructional DVD in September of 2006. By the end of the day, the one set proved insufficient for all three boys, so they got them one set each.

“By April 2007, just after six months of stacking, the boys were so passionate about the sport that we decided to let them compete at the 2007 World Sport Stacking Championships in Denver,” Marivic recalls. “Not only were we impressed by their times, but by their ability to focus, perform and stack under pressure.  It’s one thing to practice stacking at home. But many stackers do not necessarily hit their fastest times at competition where you have the added pressure of judges, video cameras, an audience, and two warm-ups before your three competition attempts. It’s just like any sport – the real winners are those who can hit their targets come crunch time.”

Steven practices at least an hour a day. He first broke the world record (set by a German boy at the 2007 Championships, at 7.25 seconds) at his second tournament in Oct. 2007 in New York; Steven’s world record was 7.23 seconds.  Since then, the world record has been going back and forth between Steven and two German boys.     

However, the record stayed with Steven since his third tournament in Delaware in February 2008, at 6.65 seconds.  In March 2008, he broke it again at 6.52 seconds.  So coming into this year’s competition in Denver, he was already a celebrity in the sport stacking world. He couldn’t walk through the competition venue or hotel lobby without being asked for autographs on programs, pieces of paper, and even on cups themselves. This was magnified by TV and radio appearances and newspaper articles in Denver days before the world championships.

On April 6, Steven outdid himself again, up-stacking and down-stacking the 3-3-3 sequence in an unbelievable 1.86 seconds, shattering his own previous mark of 1.96 seconds. He made an even bigger leap with the individual cycle (more than one formation) in a time of only 6.21 seconds, way below his own mark of 6.50 seconds.

“Steven’s confidence, ability to focus, remain calm and perform under intense pressure is admirable. But perhaps what we love most is how grounded and humble they’ve remained through all the success and fame that have come their way,” Marivic said after the boys finished in the top 10 with a large collection of medals out of a field of 1,051 stackers.

Several coaches concede that the records Steven set are expected to be long-standing world records that may not be broken for several years – except perhaps by Steven himself. If you want to see Steven in action, just key in “dvpurugs” on YouTube, or go to the World Speed Stacking Association website or www.speedstacks.com.

When I first saw him in action, I thought the video was being played in fast forward. I couldn’t believe it, myself.