General | July 28, 2017 | 19:11

Sport stackers come in all shapes and sizes.

There are also sport stackers that compete in wheel chairs and those competing that are not even kids, considering there is a 25-and-up division in the AAU Junior Olympic Games at the Suburban Collection Showplace in Novi.

However, are they athletes?

"Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" a group of sport stackers screamed, as the question was asked of them.

That group was made up of Kian Lynch of Wilmington, Del., William Orrell of Clemmons, N.C., Leah Jones of San Antonio, Texas, and Julia Grohman of California. They comprised Team 15, which battled Team 11 Friday in the final of the 3-6-3 relay.

Team 11 was comprised of Nicholas Stamm, Hayley Berry, Spencer Lathe and Melissa Gomez.

The way a 3-6-3 relay works is one relay participant makes three stacks of cups, breaks them down and then runs behind a line. Then, the next participant does the same until all four members of the relay team have created a stack.

Orrell, the "wise guy" of Team 15, claims he runs at least five miles a day to get ready for competition.

"It is a sport," he said. "Sports is even in the name, 'sport(s) stacking.'"

The first key to competing in sport stacking, in which the goal is to stack 12 cups into different shaped pyramids as quickly as one can, is having fast hands and instincts.

Dropping any of the cups spells doom.

"It's all instinct," Orrell said. "It is psychological."

Jones added, "And (once) you've been doing it for so long, it kind of (just) happens."

Creativity was also mentioned as a key component for sport stacking.

These sport stackers had a cult following, too. I had to halt my interview, while the stackers signed autographs.

They also came up with cool t-shirts and nicknames for their teams. For instance, there were women wearing t-shirts that read, "I'm Stacked."

The best names for teams were "Baby Got Stack" and the "Stackson 5."

Half of the competitors said they discovered the sport by watching YouTube videos, which convinced them to give stacking a try.

Americans might have the creativity down pat, but the sport is dominated by individuals from Korea. In fact, 22 of the top 50 female times in the world belong to Koreans, including the 3-6-3 relay world-record time of 1.779 seconds by Chan Keng Ian.

While going for the world record, she had to create two pyramids with three cups and a third pyramid with six cups. She pulled off all of it in less than two seconds.

I couldn't even take a sip from a cup in that amount of time.

Speaking of sips, drinking out of the cups is not recommended. They lack a center, in order to create more speed for the sport stackers to work with.

So, if you poured a drink, it would end up in your lap.

Competition continues Saturday, with awards to be handed out to the top three all-around champions in both the female and male divisions.