2012 Fantasy Olympics: Conclusion and Results (Part IV)

For the last two weeks of the 2012 Fantasy Olympics I’ve been sitting comfortably in the silver medal position. The national dominance of China with contributions from distance powerhouse nations Kenya and Ethiopia put my point advantage into a favorable position.

I don’t remember exactly when it started. My three time gold medal winning water polo selection Hungary was upset by Italy. Then Italy followed it up by knocking out my other medal favorite, Serbia. Ethiopia and Kenya came up with just one bronze medal in two distance events and my scoring gap closed to zero.

I woke up this morning in a three way race for the final two medal positions and the least favorable scoring prospects. The multinational effort of my 2012 fantasy campaign “Kenya beat me?” was in doubt. I watched this morning as Kenya missed out for gold in the Men’s Marathon and Ethiopia failed to medal entirely. But Serbia came back from a three goal deficit against Montenegro in the Bronze medal match of independent states and I realized I had I fighting chance in a thrilling final day of Olympics.

With the conclusion of the 2012 Olympic Games it is fitting to distinguish the top overall performances with medals of their own.

Our first recognition is for top performances in our International Draft, celebrating productive medal winning selections and finding those late round gems which bolster successful fantasy scoring. Top draft selections who greatly outperformed expectations included Japan, Italy, Czech Republic and the final draft pick of Croatia who outscored 21 of the 34 countries selected before it. The values indicate the total scoring amount in excess of the approximate value of the draft picks used to select each country.

International Draft:

Richard - 21.42

Angela - 16.96

Matt - 14.84

Our event schedule covered the full spectrum of the Olympic competitions, and 49 of 51 events were selected, recognizing the diversity. Our second recognition is to celebrate the top performers in identifying and selecting the optimal event choices which allowed for the greatest scoring potential. To put it simply this was measured by dividing each participant’s final score by their maximum possible score.

Event Selection:

Matt - 89.66%

Alex - 88.89%

Richard - 88.24%

Finally our top overall performances which often reflect the actual Olympics; the unpredictable podium appearances, unexpected breakout countries and shocking disappointments. Bringing together the importance of successful drafting and careful selection of events, participants avoided trap events and put themselves into great opportunities while making the right choices.

Overall Performance:

Richard - 86 pts

Matt - 81 pts

Alex - 67 pts

Angela - 64 pts

Jeff - 54 pts

Stephanie - 44 pts

Congratulations and thank you to all everyone for participating, it was my absolute pleasure to lead everyone in this experiment and hopefully we’ll do it all over again for Sochi in 2014. Maybe next time we should do official team names. The result for "Kenya beat me?" turned out to be resoundingly "Yes, yes we will". I suppose my redeem team in 2014 "There is Norway you can beat us again" may have a shot.