Olympics Rare Entries Contest

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NOTE: Do NOT post your answers here. Reply only by e-mail to [email protected]

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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 sports 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 [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.sport.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 sport. The piece of equipment must be such that the sport in question is uniquely determined and is obvious to an average Olympic sports follower from the name of the equipment.

2. Name an Olympic discipline or sport 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 portion of the Olympics at least two separate times.

4. Name a team sport 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 sport is a sport 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 sport, 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 sport 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 sports 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 sport 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 'sport' 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 sport 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 sport has only one discipline, then the name of the sport 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/sports/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 supporting information with your entry. Often a web address is sufficient support 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 sport.

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