Where Your Dreams Become
Reality
Where Your Dreams Become
Reality
|
LetsRun.com Brooks Beijing Prediction Contest Recap The 2008 Brooks LetsRun.com Prediction Contest for the Olympics in Beijing, took track and field prediction contests to another level. First, there was the $1,000,000 prize for a perfect ballot (good luck getting that one), a great sponsor Brooks with great prizes, and some fierce competition. In the top 10 point getters in the contest, there was a World Indoor Champion in the 200m (yes, a guy who has run 20.21 for 200m got in the top 10 in the contest), a former super agent in the sport, a previous winner of one of our other contests (and another one who had finished 3rd), plus five former NCAA Division I track and field runners. Australia Reigns Supreme Chriss picks were pretty damn good. He got 17 of the 34 event winners (shows how tough it is to pick winners in track and field and how unpredictable the sport can be) and picked 61 out of the 102 who were in the medal positions in each event. For winning the contest Chris gets a great Brooks gift pack. He gets a pair of Brooks shoes, a Brooks Heritage Jacket and an Brooks Iffley Road TShirt. But before you get too jealous of Chris, you can give him a little hell, as he did not pick his fellow countryman Steve Hooker to win the pole vault and he also missed the incredible Usain Bolt in the 100m. "Scandal" Comes to the Contest If you looked the scores below, you see that Chris (chrislw21) actually finished in 3rd place in the standings. Tied for first place was Youth In Asia, and Moes Tavern. Turns out Youth in Asia and Moes Tavern were actually the same person, former super agent in the sport, Troy James. Troy represented at various points NYC champ Andres Espinosa, Olympic marathon champ Fatuma Roba, former pole vault world record holder in the Joe Dial, WC high jump champ Charles Austin, OG bronze medallist Kipkemboi Kimeli and others but got out of the sport in late-1997. Now he acts as advisor to races, federations and athletes. Troy entered under his own name Moes Tavern, and then took over the picks of one of his employees. The day after the contest, Troy called us to tell us that Moes Tavern and Youth in Asia were (sort of) one and the same and that he saw in the contest rules, when trying to figure out what he won, that our rules say one entry per person. While we know Troy a little bit personally through LetsRun.com supercoach JK, we were super impressed with his honesty (we won't make the joke about an honest agent). But at the end of the day, there are some advantages to having two entries in the contest so we had to disqualify Troy. Although we had to disqualify Troy, we were blown away that one person could do so well in the contest twice. Plus we were impressed Troy contacted us on his own so we decided to reward him with the autographed Brian Sell jersey which was a bonus prize Brooks said we could give away at our discretion. Clearly, Troys still got a great eye for talent. He should get back into the sport as an agent. Top 30 (Click on a person to see their picks)
Conference Stars and Ringers in the Top 10 Third place was Aster Tadesse. If the name sounds familiar, it should. Aster got third in our Olympic Trials prediction contest as well. She entered that one to show her husband who was boss and she dominated him in this contest once again. Perhaps we should hire her as the LetsRun.com in house predictor. In fourth place is another familiar name, Pat Crandall. Pat won our USA Champs contest last year (we promise those letsrun.com tshirts will be made by the end of the year and on their way) and showed his expertise once again this year. World Indoor Champ in 200m Finishes Fifth He still trains two-three times a week but just for fun. Dominic only ran 20.95 this year and said he still hopes to make the Bahamian team for World next year. Showing his competitive spirit he seemed letdown by his fifth place finish. I'm upset that I didn't do better as I am a diehard fan but this will just make me study the other events harder for next time. Now you know why he was a World Champ. Places 6 through 10 will get Brooks tshirts. Well give a brief bio on each: (Tied for fifth, but lost tiebreaker) Steven R. Mills- writes for the top athletics magazine in the World Athletics Weekly. That gives him an unfair advantage in our mind. (Tied for fifth, but lost tiebreaker) Steve Eitelgeorge a former runner at Columbia in the dark days of 1992-1993. It may be hard to believe for some of you youngsters but Columbia used to be an automatic last in everything at the Heps. Now theyre doing pretty well and more importantly are in the top 10 in our contest. (Tied for fifth, but lost tiebreaker) Claes Lilja is from California and shows the casual fan has a chance in our contest. While our top 10 is full of industry insiders or former contest stars, Claes busted into the top 10 with no special advantage. Well done. 9th Clerc Koenck- a former Division I runner at Lamar. She was the Capital One/Southland Conference Cross Country Student-Athlete of the Year at Lamar and twice the Southland Conference XC Champ. With her 3.77 GPA she should have dominated our contest. She didnt tell us of her accomplishments we had to look them up, but perhaps thats because shes fortunate to be living in the great state of Texas and there is no point to brag about anything else. 10th josipo 114 If youre out there please contact us. We couldnt get in touch with you.
|
Runner's World &
|
In the end, the winner of the 2008, LetsRun.com prediction
contest was an Aussie, Chris Wainwright. Wainwright definitely did his homework
before the contest as he looked at the world lists on the best track and field
stats site in the world, 
