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IATC 2024 Round 1

Registration and Information for Urban Axes Round 1 Qualifiers

2024 Round 1 graphic

Congratulations to our Urban axes league Members who have Qualified for

Round 1 of the 2024 International Axe Throwing Championship!

Through participation in Urban Axes leagues and IATF tournaments, many of our league members have qualified for Round 1 of the 2024 International Axe Throwing Championship! To find out if you've qualifed, you can check the official qualifiers list published today by the IATF.

For those of you who are new to IATC qualification, the IATC takes place in two stages: Round 1 on March 22nd-24th and Round 2 on June 15th & 16th. Round 1 takes place at your home venue and is open to everyone who met the necessary criteria during the past qualifying year, while Round 2 takes place in Toronto, ON, and features 256 competitors who have qualified through muliple pathways.

NOTE: Please be 100% committed to going to Round 2 in Toronto on June 15-16 before competing in Round 1. Round 2 requires a second registration fee of $150 as well as the ability to cover your own lodging and travel. Know you can’t get vacation time from work? Please don’t throw. The Round 2 spots are HIGHLY coveted and the throwers that receive them need time to plan their trips. This makes it’s very difficult to replace competitors when they dropout after receiving their Round 2 invites, so don't keep someone else from going by competing for a spot you know you'll have to turn down.

REGISTRATION

To compete in the International Axe Throwing Championship, you must sign-up for and compete in Round 1 at your local venue between March 22nd-24th. Round 1 registration will open at 9am EST on 3/13. Urban Axes throwers (will register and pay for Round 1 on our webpage, not the IATF’s website as in years past. Click here and you’ll be taken to a landing page where you can choose your home venue. You can then select a heat from the available days and times and pay for your registration.

We will add additional heats if all the time slots fill up, but please contact me if you cannot attend any of the currently available timeslots. All Round 1 qualifiers must throw between Friday, March 22nd and Sunday, March 24th (IATF mandated), but we will attempt to accommodate reasonable scheduling conflicts if possible.

You may throw Round 1 at another participating IATF venue if you are unable to attend Round 1 at your home venue or another Urban Axes location. If you need to throw Round 1 somewhere other than Urban Axes, you must register for Round 1 on the IATF’s website and declare you intend to throw Round 1 outside of your qualifying club. You’ll then be asked to indicate where you hope to throw so the IATF can alert the respective venue. You can also contact the venue directly to ask on what date(s) and time(s) they will be hosting Round 1, and please copy info@iatf.com and nathan@urbanaxes.com so they may help facilitate.

COMPETITION FORMAT

Round 1 of the Wilson Cup is a competition hosted at IATF member venues around the world. Qualifying players compete against each other in a unique match format consisting of 75 hatchet throws and 15 big axe throws. Round 1 will be scored using the updated Premier Rules, under which players have the opportunity to score a touch Clutch worth 5 pts or a Premier Clutch worth 7 pts each time Clutch is called.

Please arrive 30 minutes prior to your timeslot for check-in and warm-up throws. We will have a practice arena available only to those scheduled for the next heat. Heats will begin promptly at the scheduled time and should last around 30-45 minutes

Players are divided into heats of up to 4 players. Each player will start on one of 4 targets. They will begin by throwing 15 axes at one target. Players must throw for Clutch on the 5th, 10th and 15th (final) axe.

Following this set of 15 axes, all players will move one target to the right, with the player on the 4th target moving to the 1st target. They will then continue by throwing another set of 15 axes at this target, again, with the requirement to throw for Clutch on the 5th, 10th and 15th (final) axe.

Following this second set of 15 axes, all players will move one target to the right, with the player on the 4th target moving to the 1st target. They will repeat this process of throwing 15 axes and moving to the right until they have thrown 75 total axes.

Once the 75 hatchet throws are completed, each player will individually throw 15 Big Axes. Clutch is available on all 15 throws but is not mandated.

All scores will be recorded in AxeScores. Nevertheless, the throwers and scorekeepers should communicate the total score for each set of 15 axes and the 15 Big Axes to the players to ensure that each set of axes are recorded accurately. It is the responsibility of the throwers to ensure their scores are accurate.

FOLLOWING ROUND 1

Following Round 1, the players with the top performances from each participating IATF member organization will advance to Round 2 of the Wilson Cup, held in Toronto in June 2024.

Round 2 will include 256 players. 54 spots are reserved for winners on the Integrated Tournament Circuit (Grand Slams, Majors, Regionals), last year's IATC Champion, and the winner of Close But No Cigar 2024. Each IATF member organization is allocated a portion of the 202 remaining Round 2 spots based on their total league participation during the Qualification Period.

The IATF has not yet published what portion of the 202 remaining spots will be allocated to Urban Axes this year, though we expect to receive this update later this week. As a result, we do not know how many spots each of our venues will receive, but Urban Axes chooses to follow the IATF's lead and allocate it's Round 1 spots proportionally to each of our 5 venues based total league participation. As a result, each Urban Axes venue will have it's own pool of Round 2 spots to compete for and throwers will only be ranked against other throwers at the Urban Axes location in which they qualified.

Players' Round 1 performances are ranked by highest total score of the 75 hatchet throws. Ties are broken by the highest total score from the 15 Big Axe throws. Qualifying season averages will be used if the Big Axe scores do not break the tie.

Players' tournament seed in Round 2 is also determined by their Round 1 performance. This means the IATC Champion, Tournament Circuit Winners, and Regionals Winners must register and compete in Round 1 to be seeded in Round 2.

Invitations to Round 2 will begin on Thursday, March 28. You must respond to the IATF promptly to either accept or decline your invitation after you receive it, as your spot will pass to the next thrower in the rankings if you decline.

IATC 2024 Round 2, June 12-16

Round 2 of the International Axe Throwing Championship takes place in Toronto on June 15th & 16th. The IATF hosts multiple additional tournaments from June 12-14 leading up to IATC, including Big Axe, Doubles, Women's, & average-capped events. Click here to view the full schedule for IATC 2024.

Only sign-up for Round 1 if you are willing and able to attend Round 2 of IATC in Toronto on June 10-11. This event is intended to be the first round of the tournament, and it is difficult to notify those who qualify and finalize registrations in a timely manner if multiple competitors back out after qualifying. We understand that circumstances may change following Round 1, but please confirm you have the time, funds, and desire to compete in Toronto this June before you sign up to compete in Round 1. You can learn more about IATC 2024 here.