Festival Battle Challenge

The Festival Battle Challenge (Japanese: フタバ祭りバトル大会  Festival Battle Tournament) is an -exclusive tournament that takes place in Twinleaf Town and consists of. It is the main event of the annual Twinleaf Festival.

In the year that Johanna was elected the festival's chairperson, the winner was awarded with a gold trophy and given the opportunity to battle Tower Tycoon Palmer, head of Sinnoh's and one of the region's Frontier Brains. The event was featured in Challenging a Towering Figure!.

Competition
The Festival Battle Challenge was held on the last day of the Twinleaf Festival. It was emceed by Top Coordinator Johanna, who delivered a brief performance using her and  prior to the start of the competition in order to entertain the audience. The battles were refereed by Sayer, while Izzy and Cara watched over the trophy.

The tournament consists of one-on-one matches and s are allowed one each. ,, , and had showed interest in battling  and they all decided to enter the tournament. Eventually, Ash and Barry reached the finals, with the match ending in a victory for Ash, who was then given the chance to face off against Palmer.

For his battle against the, Ash was allowed to use a different Pokémon in his party and he chose his. Palmer sent out his, who was said to be a great barrier for challengers of the. During the match, Grotle received a temporary power boost after it accidentally swallowed its own. Despite this, it failed to resist the opponent's and ended up losing. After the battle, Palmer complimented Ash on his skills and suggested that he head to Sunyshore City to battle Volkner, the local Gym Leader.

Trivia

 * The power boost which Ash's Grotle received during its battle against 's would eventually be adapted by  into a combination for her  to use in future Pokémon Contests.

In other languages
Sfida di Lotta del Festival