Olympics Rare Entries Contest
There have been numerous general knowledge rare entries contests, but as
far as I know this is the first that is Olympics-specific (although in
the past I've run a general s****ts contest and a golf contest). The
object is to:
a) Answer each question correctly, and
b) Give answers that will be given by as few other people as possible.
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Reply ONLY BY EMAIL to no_one_knows@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
do not post to any
newsgroup. Your subject line should say "Olympic Rare Entries." Entries
must reach by noon (U.S. Central time zone) on August 30, 2004. Results
will be e-mailed to all entrants, and then discussion will take place on
rec.games.trivia and rec.s****t.olympics. See below the questions for a
detailed explanation of the contest rules.
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0. Name a theatrical-release motion picture where the primary story
involves in some way an athlete or group of athletes competing in the
Olympic games.
1. Give a one-word, non-hyphenated name of a piece of equipment owned by
an individual (and used more or less exclusively by that individual) for
use in a summer Olympic s****t. The piece of equipment must be such that
the s****t in question is uniquely determined and is obvious to an
average Olympic s****ts follower from the name of the equipment.
2. Name an Olympic discipline or s****t having one or more events
requiring the presence of liquid water as part of the venue in a
quantity visible to a large number of spectators.
3. Name a city that has earned the right to host at least a ****tion of
the Olympics at least two separate times.
4. Name a team s****t in Olympic competition in which no team scored more
than 30 points in a single Olympic game between January 1, 2001, and
August 30, 2004. In this context, a team s****t is a s****t in which there
is no individual competition and in which a team a competes directly
against another one in a game involving a ball or similar object.
5. Give a one or two word name for a type of athletic footwear that
resembles a shoe or boot, that is used in an Olympic s****t, and that you
could not normally use for everyday wear because they would tend to
damage flooring or because they would inhibit your ability to walk
normally. You may not use the words 'cleat,' 'left' or 'right'
6. Name an Olympic athlete who won an individual gold medal twice in the
same event without winning that event in consecutive Olympic games.
7. Name a country with a current population over 15 million that existed
in 1950 but did not win an Olympic gold medal until after that time.
8. Name an Olympic s****t in which the outcomes of at least some events
depend on the subjective ratings given by one or more judges. In this
context, 'judge' does not refer to simply to a s****ts official, but to
someone who assigns a rating to the performance of the contestant that
is used in determining the winner.
9. Name an Olympic event--no part of which takes place on the track, and
without specifying 'men's' or 'women's'-- in which you would normally
expect to see most competitors run at least 25 meters (all at once, in a
relatively straight line, without carrying, holding, or otherwise moving
any object other than the clothing and protective equipment normally
worn in that s****t and without significantly changing direction) at
least one time during the event.
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Although the questions in a rare entries contest normally speak for
themselves, I'll clarify a few points to avoid confusion. With respect
to the Olympics, the term 's****t' is often a broad classification, with
sub-classifications called disciplines. Some disciplines have a large
number of 'events,' while others have only a few. For example, the s****t
of 'skating' in the winter Olympics includes the disciplines 'figure
skating,' 'speed skating,' and 'short track speed skating.' Figure
skating has the events 'individual men's,' 'individual women's,' 'ice
dancing mixed,' and 'pairs mixed.'
If a s****t has only one discipline, then the name of the s****t and the
name of the discipline are considered to be the same.
Detailed information about these classifications can be found at:
http://www.olympic.org/uk/s****ts/index_uk.asp
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Directions:
As usual, for each of the items above, your objective is to give a
response that (1) is correct, and (2) will be duplicated by as FEW other
people as possible. Feel free to use any reference material you like to
research your answers.
Your message should preferably consist of just the 10 answers, numbered
0 to 9, along with any explanations required (put in parentheses next to
your answer), and your name (if it won't be in the "From:" line).
I may ask you to supply further information or to justify of an answer,
and I reserve the right to make a posting to consult on any judgment
issue before my final decision. If you know your answer will require
justification, you should probably save us both some time by including
sup****ting information with your entry. Often a web address is
sufficient sup****t if it is for a reputable site.
You can expect an acknowledgement when I read your entry. Your email
address will be posted in the results if I don't see both a first and a
last name, or an explicit request for a particular form of your name to
be used.
Questions are not intended to be hard to understand, but normally no
clarifications will be given during the contest. Only the first answer
you submit counts; no changes are allowed after submitting an entry, nor
alternate answers within an entry.
For my convenience please do not quote this message when responding.
Mail only your answers, and these in plain ASCII or ISO 8859-1 text: no
HTML, attachments, Micros--t character sets, etc. (People who fail to
comply will be chastised in the results posting.)
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Scoring:
The scoring is a little complicated, but that needn't worry you. Just
try to give correct answers that you don't think a lot of other people
will submit. However, here is how the scoring works:
If your answer on a category is correct, then your score is the number
of people who gave that answer or an answer I consider equivalent. If
wrong, or if you skip the question, you get a high score as a penalty.
The scores on the different questions are MULTIPLIED to produce a final
score. Low score wins; a perfect score is 1. All entrants will be listed
in order of score in the results posting, but high (bad) scores may be
omitted, and the answer slates of the top few entrants will be posted.
The penalty score for a wrong question is the median of:
- the number of entrants
- the square root of that number, rounded up to an integer
- double the highest score for a correct answer on the question
For example, say I'd asked for a member of the Beatles. 20 people say
Ringo Starr, 1 says John Lennon, 2 say Richard Starkey, and 4 say Yoko
Ono. After looking up Richard Starkey I decide it's the same answer as
Ringo Starr and should be treated as a duplicate answer; then the 22
people who said either Ringo Starr or Richard Starkey get 22 points
each. The one person who said John Lennon gets a perfect score of 1
point. The four people who say Yoko Ono are wrong, and get a penalty
score. The penalty score is the median of: (a) number of entrants = 27
(b) sqrt(27) = 5.196, rounded up = 6 (c) double the highest score = 22 x
2 = 44. Thus, in this case, the penalty score is the median of 6, 27,
and 44, which is 27.
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Judging:
As moderator, I will be the sole judge of what answers are correct, and
whether two answers with the same meaning (like Ringo Starr and Richard
Starkey) are to be considered the same. It is also possible that I may
consider one answer to be a more specific variant of another: in that
case it will be scored as if they are different, but the other, less
specific variant will be scored as if they are the same. For example, if
there was a contest with a question for which three people answered
'Ford Taurus,' five people answered 'Plymouth Breeze', and two people
answered 'car,' the scores for that question would be Ford Taurus = 3,
Plymouth Breeze = 5, and car = 10 (assuming all answers were judged to
be correct).
Thus, it is in your best interest to make your answers as specific as
possible while making sure they still answer the question correctly. In
particular, this type of scoring will be used if a question asks for,
say, an Olympic event and you answer with a discipline or s****t.
I will do my best to be fair on all such issues; if you don't like my
judgments feel free to say so or to run a contest of your own.
Many thanks to Brian Van Dorn, who was extremely helpful in the
preparation of this quiz and who wrote several of the questions. Without
his help, this contest might not have been possible. It was a true
sacrifice on his part because he'd like to enter more than anyone, and
he's no longer eligible. I'll no doubt ask for his assistance in judging
as well.
Incidentally, this contest is for fun only; there is no prize other than
the respect and admiration of your peers. Good luck and have fun.
-Harold Buck
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