Okay, athletics zombies- time for a quick contest (with short notice) First take a look at the current Stadium Records at the Letzigrund Stadium in Zürich:
Men: 100 m Montgomery Tim USA 9.90 (+0.2) 17.8.01 200 m Marsh Mike USA 19.95 (-1.0) 19.8.92 400 m Reynolds Butch USA 43.29 17.8.83 WR 800 m Kipketer Wilson DEN 1:41.24 13.8.97 WR 1500 m El Guerrouj Hicham MAR 3:26.45 12.8.98 1 Mile Morceli Noureddine ALG 3:45.19 16.8.95 3000 m Aouita Said MAR 7:32.54 13.8.86 5000 m Gebrselassie Haile ETH 12:41.86 13.8.97 WR 110 m H Kingdom Roger USA 12.92 (-0.1) 16.8.89 WR 400 m H Matete Samuel ZAM 47.10 7.8.91 3000 m St Boulami Brahim MAR 7:58.50 17.8.01 HJ Austin Charles USA 2.40 7.8.91 PV Trandenkov Igor RUS 5.95 14.8.96 LJ Pedroso Ivan CUB 8.60 (+1.5) 16.8.95 TJ Edwards Jonathan GBR 17.79 (-0.7) 14.8.96 SP Barnes Randy USA 22.42 17.8.88 DT Alekna Virgilius LIT 71.12 11.8.00 HT Abduvalyev Andrej TJK 83.24 17.8.94 JT Hecht Raymond GER 92.28 14.8.96 4x100 m Marsh/Burrell/Mitchell/Lewis USA 37.67 7.8.91 WR Frauen: 100 m Ashford Evelyn USA 10.76 (+1.7) 22.8.84 WR 200 m Ottey Merlene JAM 21.66 (-1.0) 15.8.90 400 m Kratochvilova Jarmila TCH 48.86 18.8.82 800 m Mutola Maria MOZ 1:55.19 17.8.94 1500 m Kasankina Tatyana URS 3:52.47 13.8.80 WR 1 Mile Masterkova Svetlana RUS 4:12.56 14.8.96 WR 3000 m Yegorova Olga RUS 8:23.26 17.8.01 100 m H Devers Gail USA 12.39 (-0.7) 11.8.00 400 m H Batten Kim USA 52.84 12.8.98 HJ Kostadinova Stefka BUL 2.02 14.8.96 LJ Drechsler Heike GDR 7.39 (+0.3) 21.8.85 TJ Biryukova Anna RUS 15.03 (+0.0) 16.8.95 SP Lissovskaya Natalya URS 20.23 21.8.85 DT Melnik Faina URS 70.20 20.8.75 WR JT Felke Petra GDR 71.40 13.8.86 4x100 m Gladisch/Koch/Auerswald/Göhr GDR 41.85 22.8.84 These are possibly the toughest stadium records in the entire world. Now take a look at Friday's entry lists for men and women: http://www.weltklasse.ch/eng/index.htm The gist of the contest is to predict any new stadium records. Send the following by e-mail to me, no later than 8AM PACIFIC time on Friday morning: EVENT - ATHLETE NAME - NEW RECORD TIME OR DISTANCE The athlete name must be associated with a specific event, and the new mark prediction must be associated with a specific event & athlete name. In other words, each prediction must have three parts. You may enter more than one predicted new stadium record, but take a look at the scoring first: 1. Marks must be wind-legal to count as records. 2. Event prediction is correct, but name & mark are wrong: 5 points 3. Event & name OR mark are correct: 10 points 4. Event, name AND mark are all correct (a trifecta!): 20 points Non-winners who legally break the stadium record will get the same points as above, IF the winner was wind-aided. If the winner was LEGAL for record purposes, then the predicted non-winner will get the same points as above, but decremented by 1 point. So you just predict somebody in every event, right? Wrong, kemo-sabey. Scoring Rule #5: Where the predicted event does NOT result in a new stadium record, you score minus (-) 3. So be judicious in your entries. If you predict a stadium record in an event that's not even being contested Friday, it's an automatic -3, so pay attention to the Zurich web site. If your predicted athlete sets a stadium record in a DIFFERENT event than you predicted, you don't get any points, but you won't get penalized either, as long as SOMEBODY sets a stadium record in the event you predicted. You say you need a prize to make it worth your time? Okay- here's the prize: --------------------------------------------------------------------- A vintage T&FN 1978 High School Track Annual. With Renaldo Nehemiah pictured on the cover as HS Athlete of 1977. Includes complete 1977 list, results of the big HS meets in '77, all-time HS lists, the '77 T&FN All-American list, etc. 56 pages for the guys, 6 pages for the gals (it was 1978 remember). This one is in EXCELLENT condition folks- not even any dogeared pages. --------------------------------------------------------------------- Okay, have fun, get your entries e-mailed to me, and I'm the final judge. Any zombie who e-mails a field event prediction in imperial will get it converted to metric using the T&FN tables, rounded DOWN if there's not a direct conversion. So just send it in metric to avoid any conversion loss. Oh yes, in case of a needed tie-breaker, it'll be whoever comes closest to predicting the exact new stadium record time or distance, based on least number of Hungarian table points that you "missed" by. This tie-breaker will be used to break exact total scoring ties, even if any predicted athlete names were wrong. I'll try to post a compendium of the entries just before the meet starts (but after the entries close at 8am) Any CORRECT entries that just state 'no new stadium records this Friday' will get the book if you're the ONLY one to correctly predict it- otherwise you just get 'virtual kudos'. The weatherman (there's been monsoons in central Europe this summer) may have a sizeable influence on the possibility of lack of any new stadium records (along with the records already being very tough), so you might want to check out your favorite internet weather report before sending in your entries. Oh yes, CORRECTIONS to entries will also be accepted up until the 8am Friday deadline. Don't forget the time zone difference- that's 8am Pacifc time zone. Oh yes, the fine print- Contest results will be final as soon as all results are officially posted. No recalculations will result from subsequent announcement of doping failures, even though official Zurich results could be adjusted several weeks from now. (i.e. the book will be in the mail before I go back to work on Monday!) RT