NationStates Jolt Archive

Welcome team managers, and thank you for sending a team to the Ylompic Games in Tyrellia, Casari.

As you arrive in the nation of Casari, your athletes will have to register at the Ylompic Village, currently located on the edge of Tyrellian University, in the heart of the city. Afterward, you will have some time to relax and acclimate yourself to the city. Twenty-Five nations have sent athletes to the competition.

The Schedule in .xls for those who do (http://bellsouthpwp.net/h/a/harleyt_1387/Tyrelliasgs3.xls)
The Schedule in CSV for those who don't (http://bellsouthpwp.net/h/a/harleyt_1387/Tyrelliasgs3alt.csv)

The Results (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=473669)

The lineups of each nation are provided below for your convienence in planning game strategies.
Casari (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10558603&postcount=48)
Spruitland (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10522709&postcount=2)
Crna Gora Liv Eng (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10523877&postcount=3)
Starblaydia (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10525598&postcount=5)
Andossa Se Mitrin Vega (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10526259&postcount=6)
Milchama (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10529198&postcount=14)
Liverpool England (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10529288&postcount=15)
Dorian and Sonya (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10529294&postcount=16)
Ariddia (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10530187&postcount=17)
San Adriano (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10530277&postcount=18)
Rejistania (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10533520&postcount=30)
Kelse (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10533823&postcount=31)
Ceorana (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10534257&postcount=32)
The Macabees (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10537520&postcount=39)
Uhuh-Topia (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10538035&postcount=40)
Chicanada (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10539295&postcount=41)
Allanea (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10540428&postcount=43)
Anastasiania (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10571109&postcount=53)
Bedistan (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10576402&postcount=55)
Collonie (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10576535&postcount=56)
Krytenia (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10576558&postcount=57)
Algal States (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10578970&postcount=62)
Becquerelia (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10581803&postcount=63)
The Kazoo Peoples (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10582680&postcount=64)
Schiavonia (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showpost.php?p=10584024&postcount=65)

Day One will consist of the Opening Ceremonies, while Competition begins on Day Two, with the first medal being awarded in the Women's Road Race. The Organizing committee would like to thank all of the nations who are coming for participating and wish each team and athlete good luck in their particular events.

For the consideration of those involved, the organizing committee would like to present the full list of Ylompic venues:

Tyrellian Ylompic Stadium: Usually the hope of the national football team, the stadium has been converted and expanded slightly to a capacity of 114,290 for the Ylompic Games. Along with being the home of the Opening and Closing ceremonies, the stadium will also be home to Athletics.

Ylompic Aquatic Center: Adjacent to the village complex, the Aquatic Center holds 27,300 around 3 pools. During the Games, the Aquatic Center will hold the Swimming, Diving, Syncronized Swimming, and Water Polo competitions.

Tyrellia Hill Stadium: Home to Casari's Tyrellian International Football club, the stadium of 87,304 is being put to good use as home to most of the pool play and finals in men and women's Football.

Four Towers Stadium: On the other side of the city, the 83,900 seat home of Tyrellia City Football Club will be host to the majority of the Hockey competition.

Ari Hill Loop: The Ari Hill Loop, a 22km course laid out which reaches from the city center out and through the Tyrellian suburb of Ari, will be the route of the Road Cycling Events. As well, part of the loop will be used as the land leg of the Triathlon.

Redman Velodrome: On campus, the Redman Velodrome will be the home to the remaining Track Cycling events.

Weili Rowing and Yacht club: The Weili Rowing and Yacht club will play host to both Rowing and Flatwater Canoeing, as well as providing the launching point for those in the Sailing events, which take place out in the bay.

Atkinson National Park: A showpiece of Casari's native environment, the Fox river cutting through Atkinson makes a perfect venue for the Slalom Canoeing events, while the forest itself will host the Cross-Country Cycling events.

Ylompic Shooting Pavillion: The newly-built Ylompic Shooting Pavillion will hold the Shooting and Archery events.

Aritu Arena: Aritu Arena is the home to both the men's and women's Basketball competition.

Imperial Cricket Ground, Soling: The Imperial Cricket Ground, the largest in Casari, in the neighboring city of Soling was chosen as the home to the Ylompic Cricket Competition.

Baron Stadium: Home to the Barons Baseball team, the Baron Stadium will hold most of the Baseball Pool play, as well as the Finals.

National Sports Complex: The National Sports Complex, built a decade ago, is a large all-sport facility which will be used to cover excess team sport Pool play events. As well, the Reo Tennis centre's Clay Courts will be hosting the Tennis competition, while neighboring Crie Field will be hosting Softball.

Lesari Fieldhouse: The Lesari Fieldhouse, on the Tyrellian University Campus, will have both of it's connected arenas in use- One, holding the Gymnastics events, while the other will be the host to both Table Tennis and Badminton.

Wilson Beach: The large, white sand beaches of the exclusive Wilson Beach resort have been chosen to hold the temporary stands and courts for Beach Volleyball

Lawson Arena: Traditionally the ice arena of Tyrellian University, the arena has had the ice taken out and been modified to hold the Volleyball Events for the Ylompics.

Emeri Brewing Arena: Another modified ice arena, the Emeri Brewing Arena has also had the ice removed, but in this case, to hold a Handball Court.

Revolution Square Center: The Revolution Square Center, after a flurry of modification and construction, is now being used for the Combat Sports: Boxing, Wrestling, Taekwondo, and Judo.

White Amphitheater: Formerly used for the performing arts, the newly modified White Amphitheater has been altered for a much more reasonable use, which would be hosting Weightlifting and Fencing.

Ylompic Equestrian Center: The final venue for the Ylompic games, the Ylompic Equestrian Centre and the surrounding grounds will be hosting the Equestrian events that are it's namesake.

Ylompic Village, Tyrellia, Casari

The first competitors to arrive from Allanea would probably shock the locals by their appearance – the Allaneans never had much to do with decorum and formal clothing, and those of them who were celebrities – as is usual with all celebrities – had even less to do with decorum and formal clothing. And a shooting sportsman was quite a bit of a celebrity in the United States of Allanea.

As far as that went, Gregory Sandes fell right into that stereotype. The world-class prone rifle shooter wore his hair in brilliant green, a leather jacket, and leather pants studded with colored glass designed to resemble diamonds and rubies studded into the leggings. It looked fancy-colored, but nobody could tell what it meant until the strange-looking, yet somehow elegant man flopped his papers down on the registration table.

Joshua Slim was just that, slim. He weighted one hundred and ten pounds, always smiled, had his head shaved utterly bald, and wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the slogan Born to PWN. Rumours said he was a Marine sniper in the invasion of Antanjyl, and resigned after that ceased to be challenging. Whether that was true, nobody really cared to find out. Joshua's thin arms – so slim you could make your thumb and forefinger meet around one of them – were tatooed with multicolored flame designs.

Nika South, on the other hand, was tall and muscular, making his rifle look like a matchstick. He wore utterly black jeans and combat boots, and his tank top was also perfectly black, as was his rifle. The only thing that wasn't was his belt buckle, that was a polished gleaming silver – in fact, it was silver. It was shaped like a skull with two crossed bones under it.

Behind them followed Melinda Raven, Women's Double Trap star, smiling happily and batting her eyelashed to reveal blackened eyelids and a leather, steel-studed stripe around her neck. Sad – some would say “emo” - music sounded from her MP3 player. Kassandra Clint, coming along with her, preferred listening to filk recordings – to go, apparently, with her RenFair-type costume, and Svetlana Croft listened to Britney Spears.

With these kind of guests, the Tyrellians would probably not be surprised by the time they saw Boris Petrov, Siham Koresh,, and Oliver South enter the place, all wearing dark-red Star Trek unforms. By the time all of the Allaneans filed by – including the Hashi Superbunnies in their fursuits – the Tyrellians would likely never be able to be shocked by anything, again.

You could hear the rejistanis from quite a distance as they were chatting in a multitude of languages and dialects while waiting to register. Foreigners might have thought they wore uniforms, in reality, the different asene'ny esuvorto rejistaniha just gave guidelines. They wore all light blue clothes: trousers (no jeans, since the asene'ny did not put it in the guidelines) and shirts with pattern on them in several colors. Siki Hatime and Iuliana Hana~o flirted despite Siki's boyfriend and Iuliana's girlfriend waiting at home. Y Syau missed a suitcase, Seli Janamerikana was in need of an aspirin, Initeraleli Venesesekasalala answered phonecalls on his mobile (his entire family called seperately to know whether he reached Casari well) in increasing annoyedness and volume. Someone had a radio and found RejisCAST. In general the rejistanis behaved loud and chaotic from the beginning on.

D&S Arrives in Tyrellia for Innaugural Ylompic Games

The galleons form Dorian and Sonya sailed into the bay at Tynellia, Casari in stark contrast to the more modern vessels already harbored there. As Dorian and Sonya had large tracts of the country still seemingly mired in an era more resembling the Dark Ages than things more recent, some members of the delegation even muttered aloud how a ship made of steel should not even be able to float properly.

First off these ancient looking ships came the Royal Guard, decked out in their most lavish chain mail and helms. Swords glinted on their hips, and flowing cloaks of burgundy fluttered in the stiff breeze. This only served to enhance the look and feeling of antiquity. The formation was formed flanking both sides of the dock as the D&S Ylompic delegation began to depart from the galleons.

The delegation itself, and the officials that accompanied them, were decked out in newly acquired Ylompic uniforms supplied by Sabre Inc. Most of the delegation stared in awe at the beautiful and modern city of Tynellia. Everything here from the ships in the harbor to the architecture and design of the city itself seemed to be vastly different from the nation they all called home. For most of them, this was their first venture outside their own Kingdom.

Excitement rippled through the visitors to this strange new land. Other people were about. Some speaking strange languages, some absolutely weird with their music and style of dress. Some of these people were obviously competitors from other nations as well, and the few who knew how to speak English began to converse with those whom they could understand. It was quite a bit for the small delegation to absorb.

They made their way through the streets of Tyrellia with its massive soaring buildings to find the Ylompic Village and register for the events they would be competing in. More than one person eased to the edge of the street to allow the guards and their swords to pass, on their way to their temporary homes.

Upon arriving at the Ylompic Village and while still waiting to register, one of the younger girls exclaimed “Oh my! That man has green hair!” After finishing with the formality of the registration process, the delegation fanned out with each person desiring to see what the pavilions of Casari had to offer. All the different cultures and the things that go with them were a bit overwhelming for the visitors from Dorian and Sonya. Hopefully all the new sights and sounds would not affect the athletes in a negative way as they prepared to compete in their events.

After a short venture into the shops and such the delegation returned to their rooms to rest and prepare for the festivities of the Opening ceremonies and the massive schedule of events that would soon follow.

ASMV Arrives in Tyrellia

The skies over Tynellia, Casari were filled with the thunderous sound of V-19 helicopters as the delegation from ASMV arrive for the first ever Y;ompic Games. As the blades came slowly to a halt the dorrs of the massive craft were lowered and the athletes, officials and guards began to disembark. The crowd that had gathered to watch the spectacle began to cheer and jump around quite vigorously. A band from a local Tyrellia high school sounded out the Vegan National Anthem. (quite well too). And the local police had to restrain more than one of the vivacious revelers.

But no one in the Vegan Delegation seemed to take notice. Silently they went about gathering their baggage and equipment. After that was accomplished they quickly moved into predetermined formation and began the short walk that would take them to the buses that were waiting to carry them to the Ylompic Village. Not one person turned their head to offer a smile or even acknowledge the cheering fans.

Upon arriving at the Ylompic village, it was the same ordered and systematical approach that was seen. Silently they moved past the athletes and officials from the other nations who were already here. Not once did they break the silence and order of their actions. None of the almost structured nonconformity of some of the nations. None of the staring and pointing in wonder at the sights of this new place. Only the silent organization that they had shown since arrival. Room assignments and registration was quickly completed and the delegation moved silently to their temporary homes.

One ASMV athlete was quoted as saying “We are here to compete and prove that we, as a nation, can dominate in these games. Nothing else.”

As the doors to their rooms began to close, it was another scene entirely. Athletes began to smile and laugh. More than one hug took place. The joy at being here began to show itself. From more than one room came the comment “I bet that entrance made quite an impression” - usually followed by the raucous laughter of all.

The King Alfons I, Spruitland’s Royal, luxury cruise ship that was officially catalogued as a diplomatic vessel but was predominantly used to transport athletes competing in international sporting events to their destination, approached the harbor of Tyrellia. Most of the Ylompic delegation – 257 athletes and four times as many support staff – was gathered on the deck, watching their destination creep closer.

“Not terribly impressive, is it?” one of the Water Bunnies – the women’s water polo team – mused. “I mean, for a host city.”

“Who cares,” the bulk next to her shrugged. “As long as the cathouses are clean.” That was Rock “Hard” Pikkenoog, heavyweight boxer, but the murmur of agreement in the immediate vicinity – mostly baritone – wasn’t feigned. Rock was simply expressing the general opinion of Spruitland’s male Ylompic delegation. Even though almost half of the support staff accompanying them were young, professional “masseuses”, Spruitland athletes abroad were invariably eager to sample the ‘couleur locale’. Everyone likes a change of diet once in a while – as long as the food is clean.

“So, did they decide yet?” someone asked, which caused a much louder murmur, and not one of agreement. One question had been on everyone’s mind for most of the trip, and after endless debate, bickering, and even a few minor fist fights, it was high time to settle the issue and be done with it.

“I still say let Walter do it,” one of the female cyclists said, turning the murmur into a full-fledged shouting match of pro and con arguments.

“Like I said before, I don’t care!” Walter Kippel’s voice broke through the shouts from somewhere in the crowd. Kippel, who was considered a gold medal favorite for the Time Trial, had categorically kept himself out of the discussion, which made him a favorite among a sizeable part of the delegation. It was a bit of a surprise Kippel had actually come out on deck, he had spent most of the journey on his exercise bike, training. “If I get picked, I’ll do it, but I’d just as soon have someone else do it.”

“Well I do care,” a female voice shrieked. “I’m perfect for it and you all know it, so just shut the fuck up and let me do it already!” Rhythmic Gymnast Liesje Sprijdt was indeed considered to be the perfect choice among another sizeable part of the delegation. The ideal combination of beauty and cultural background made her the favorite with the impromptu bookmakers that had emerged during the trip – most notably the kayaking Plonsaert twins, Mario and Anette, who had very little else to do on the trip for a lack of practice facilities.

Rock Pikkenoog was the third favorite, though in his case it was mostly self-proclaimed, and nobody dared disagree with him. He glared at the little gymnast.

“You sure? That flag is heavy, you know. It’s not like one of those batons or ribbons, or whatever the hell you twirl around. This is a man’s job.”

Liesje charged towards the big boxer, but one of the wrestlers intercepted her and lifted her up by the waist with hardly any effort.

“Now now, darlin’, relax a bit, why dontcha. No need to get all excited.”

“I’ve had it with this male chauvinist pig!” Liesje wailed, fluttering her legs in Rock’s direction, who stood at a safe distance with a mocking smile on his face. “Look at him! Thinks he’s such a big man, hah! But there’s a downside to all those steroids, isn’t there, Rock?” The boxer’s smile was gone in an instant. “They may make your muscles ‘rock hard’, but they have the opposite effect on one particular muscle, don’t they?”

This time the big boxer charged, and the wrestler had to swing around to put his back between Rock and Liesje.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Olav Nett, Spruitland’s Minister of Sports, cut through the crowd like Moses through the Red Sea, followed closely by an assistant with a clipboard. “Mr. Pikkenoog, perhaps it would be a good idea to save your energy for the ring. You’ll be facing opponents who are more your size, there, after all.”

Rock turned beetle red, but didn’t say anything and took a step back.

“And I would advise you, Miss Sprijdt, to keep your opinionated mouth, however pretty it is, closed in the presence of easily agitated males. We wouldn’t want you injured so close to the competition, now would we?”

Liesje grunted something and kept giving Rock the evil eye, but she, too, calmed down. Pol de Zigaer, the wrestler, put her down gently.

“Right then,” Nett went on, taking the clipboard from his assistant. “A few rules for when we arrive in the Ylompic Village. Firstly, interaction with the locals…”

“Sir?” It was Walter Kippel who interrupted the Minister, who looked slightly annoyed, but didn’t say anything – Walter was a medal candidate, after all.

“I’d suggest cutting to the point, Sir. We all know everybody’s gonna be breaking your rules anyway, might as well not bother. Just tell us who’ll be carrying the flag and get it over with.”

Nett sighed, but nodded. “Alright, I guess so,” he said, turning a few pages on the clipboard, as if he didn’t have the name memorized. “The athlete to lead Spruitland’s Ylompic delegation at the opening ceremony and proudly represent us by carrying the flag, will be…”

The crowd held its collective breath. Liesje Sprijdt shifted her feet nervously.

“Miranda Stekkebeen!”

A surprised shriek of joy from the crowd was quickly replaced by a murmur of shock and disbelief. Here and there, someone seemed pleased, but those were probably the ones who had placed a long-shot bet and saw it pay off big time.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Liesje shouted. “We’re gonna be represented by a Triple-Jumper? What kind of message does that send to the world?”

“As if a gymnast would’ve been better,” Rock pointed out, but his heart wasn’t in it. Liesje gave him more of the evil eye anyway.

“Now now, calm down,” the Minister tried to hush the crowd. “This decision was made after long deliberation and we feel it’s the best one we could have made.”

Stekkebeen – tall, skinny and blonde – did a hop, step and jump into the Minister’s arms and kissed him on the lips. “Thank you so much, Nettie!”

The crowd murmured some more, not exactly in agreement, but knowing that the decision had been made by typical Spruitland standards. At several places in the crowd, a random female athlete muttered something like “lying bastard.” Soon after that, the excitement cooled down.

The one hundred and twenty-nine athletes from the People’s Democratic Social Republic of Ariddia filed dutifully through immigration check-in at Tyrellia’s airport, the largest in Casari. It absolutely dwarfed Rêvane International Airport, where the delegation had embarked for their flight.

“Well, the weather looks sunny,” Manon van der Hayden said cheerfully, as she glanced through the large side windows, then retrieved her dark red passport from her hand luggage, the line of her fellow athletes up ahead continuing to move on through customs. She was speaking French, but switching to English in this English-speaking country would not be much of a problem. Like 87% of her compatriots, she was trilingual in Ariddia’s three official languages, Wymgani, French and English.

“So we have to register at the Ylompic Village, right?” Victor Yehiel asked, just behind her. While Manon would be entering three races in Athletics’ events, Victor was part of the nation’s small delegation to rowing, a field which had not attracted much public interest in Ariddia.

“Something like that,” Manon said with a nod, looking over her shoulder at him. “I assume the coach will take us there directly.”

“We’ve got a coach waiting for us?” Darren Foams, a judoka queuing in the line next to theirs, sounded surprised.

“What, you though we’d commandeer a few dozen taxis?” Manon asked with an amused smile. “There are several coaches, from what I’ve understood.”

“Well, as soon as we’ve registered, I’m going for a stroll round the city,” Faith Dallku, the only Ariddian woman to be taking part in table tennis, said cheerfully. “I’ve read up on Casari and Tyrellia before coming, and apparently this is the dry season. I hope you’ve all packed a lot of water.”

“Won’t it just be available?” Darren asked naively.

“We’re in a capitalist country,” Manon reminded him. “Capitalists make people pay even for essentials like water.” The delegation had received communal funds from the Comité Olympique Ariddien to get through their stay in a nation which still used money. It would take some getting used to, Manon thought, as she reached the check-in point, smiled and said good morning to the immigration officer, and handed over her passport.

“Casari, here we come!” fencing athlete Salif al Awadat exclaimed cheerfully as the large congregation of Ariddian athletes gathered after the last of them had cleared immigration, and they proceeded with enthusiastic chatter towards luggage retrieval. Several of al Awadat’s compatriots cheered at his words, eager to step out into the Tyrellian sunlight, explore this foreign country, and begin competing against the world’s best. Amongst them, manoeuvring her wheelchair down a slight slope in the carpeted floor, was Mélanie Sandré, one of only two disabled athletes to be taking part in the Games – the other being Courtney Fallon of Andossa Se Mitrin Vega. Sandré, who would be competing in swimming despite having only one leg, smiled as enthusiastically as her fellow Ariddians. Truth be told, she did feel a little intimidated; her participation in these Games had drawn a fair amount of attention, and she didn’t want to disappoint all those who would be supporting her. Still, like everyone else, I’ll do my best, she thought, firmly and eagerly, as they neared the large, bustling room where they would retrieve their luggage. . .

The athletes from Algal States were restless as they waited to register at the Ylompic village, eager to get going with their events. A cheer went up when the Minister of sport for council 2 Alex D'eon, travelling with the athletes, announced canoeist and national record holder in the C-1 500m William Kelly as having won the athletes' vote to be the flagbearer for the opening ceremonies. Truth be told most of the athletes had already guessed this as he was the only member of the canoe/kayak team present, the rest of the team wasn't due to arrive until day 10 when the rowing team finished up. A subdued groan could be heard through the crowd when the minister revealed the uniforms for the opening ceremonies and medal podiums, the brown rain pants and yellow rain jackets didn't exactly look stylish but as the minister explained were designed to showcase the nations proud history of aquaculture. The minister quickly stifled the groans by shouting "for the dichotomy" to which everyone dutifully shouted back "the great dichotomy" and everyone returned to waiting for their room assignments and discussing their strategies for the games.

“I’ve been wondering. . .”

Sabrina Vannucci momentarily tore her attention away from the small, circular viewport by her seat in the plane, and turned to the pensive-looking man sitting beside her. She brushed a strand of her dark hair away from over her cheek.

“What have you been wondering?”

“Whether the band in Tyrellia has even bothered to learn the Sanadrianese anthem.” He sounded as if he had been reflecting on the matter quite intensely for the past few minutes at least, and Sabrina gave him an amused smile. Benjamin Eash had brown hair almost as dark as hers, and very light brown skin indicative of his part-Wymgani heritage. He was frowning thoughtfully. Sabrina shrugged.

“To play the anthems when an athlete wins gold, you mean? Yes, I suppose they have. Why wouldn’t they?”

“Well. . . there’s only two of us, isn’t there?” Benjamin pointed out. “Maybe they think neither of us is going to win gold, so they just haven’t bothered. Do you think they practice playing the anthem of every single tiny nation and tiny delegation?”

Sabrina shrugged again.
“I really don’t know.” Then she grinned. “But they’d better have. Because I intend to win at least one gold medal.”

That brought a smile to her compatriot’s face, and she motioned his attention over towards the viewport.

“We’ll be coming in to land in just a few minutes. You should take a look. Casari seen from the sky is really quite spectacular. . .”

Bedistan's delegation was one of the largest in the Ylompics, totalling just a bit under five hundred. Some of the athletes joked that the Bedistani Olympic Committee (which had recently expanded its duties to also cover the Ylompics as well) should have been able to find fourteen more people willing to play to make that nice round number, but in all honesty nobody really cared that much.

At any rate, the delegation was definitely large enough to be noticed, and a lot of Bedistanis had traveled to Casari a few days early to greet the team in person. Their plane, painted a vivid green and blue to match the Bedistani flag, was spotted easily by the onlookers as it began its final approach to the airport in Tyrellia. As they stepped off the plane, the athletes were greeted with emphatic cheers and graciously returned the favor.

Women's marathon competitor Daniëla Babiana, however, seemed impatient. "Um, guys, we need to get going. The Opening Ceremony starts in two and a half hours!" The team wasn't expecting to arrive quite as late as they did, but a series of severe thunderstorms training through Sokojiwa Dosi had delayed their flight for quite some time before they could depart. Babiana had a particularly vested interest in her team's punctuality, as she had been selected to be Bedistan's flag bearer and definitely did not want to miss her chance. And given her past experience with Casarans, she knew the organizers would not wait around for the Bedistani delegation if they weren't there on time. Heck, the Ylompics were all about not waiting around. But that's another story. Quickly she ushered the team forward.

Tankiev To Carry Flag

Gary Tankiev has been chosen to carry the flag at the Opening Ceremony on behalf of the four hundred strong Krytenian team. The rower, 25, is hoping he can raise the flag again in the Men's Coxless Pairs.

[OOC: Krytenian's national sport is Rowing. Forgot that on the rosters.]

SCANDAL ROCKS BECQUERELIAN OLYMPIC COMMITTEE
Comittee President And Several Others Arrested For Corruption[/CENTER]

ROENTGEN (JNS) - In what's sure to leave a dark cloud over the Becquerelian Olympic and Ylompic teams just before their opening ceremonies, BNOC President Acacius Pagenkoph was arrested for Corruption, Influence-Peddling, and Profitteering in his dealings with the committee.

"Overall, Pagenkoph stole several million dollars from the Olympic Committee, and his several partners in crime did the same." said Chief Investigator David Hemric of the Department of Law and Order. "This has done almost fatal damage to the Olympic committe, and he will be sure to be punished soundly."

The financial damages were such that Becquerelia could only send a small delegation to the Tyrellian Ylompic Games. The Committee's charter says that the Committee must pay for all International Sporting Costs, and cannot be bailed out by the government.

President Blaise Kurrie had this to say in his weekly press conference: "Changes must be made at the Committee. I will be presenting legislation to the National Legislature to rebuild the Olympic Committee from the ground up. But for right now, I must wish our brave athletes competing for our great nation good luck."

In the interm, the BNOC sent a small delegation to the Ylompic Games "that has the best chance to score victories for the nation." Others have claimed this isn't completly true.

"Best chance to score victory? Bull." said Becquerelian Track and Field Sports Commission Chairman Thomas Malsee. "Then why did they send a Basketball Team? There's one person in the entire country that's played Basketball at any sort of high level! And they ignored our talented track-and-field athletes. This a travesty of the highest order."

In Ylompic news, Penthalete Azadanes Carasoli was named the Becquerelian Flag-Bearer for the Opening Ceremonies.

Daniëla Babiana and the rest of the Bedistani delegation arrived at the Tyrellian Ylompic Stadium only to find it deserted except for some workers. "Uh...is this the right place?"

"The ceremonies start at midnight, not noon, you knucklehead." Cyclist Manousákes Triantaphullídes enjoyed seeing other people being wrong about things and wallowed in their misfortune. "Now then, shall we get some lunch?"

Babiana hung her head as she followed the rest of the team back to its five buses.

“Wow, it’s heavy,” Miranda Stekkebeen giggled, lifting the flag into the belt around her waist.

Behind her, Liesje Sprijdt carefully avoided looking up at Rock Pikkenoog. She was done being mad at him though. The two had a mutual target for their annoyance now, and had actually gotten along well enough since getting off the boat. Mocking and gossiping about someone together creates a bit of a bond.

“Do I have to wave it around?” Miranda asked, and Liesje rolled her eyes.

“No no, just hold it steady, that’ll be just fine.” Olav Nett, the Minister of Sports and head of the Spruitland Ylompic delegation, checked for the seventeenth time that the flag wasn’t attached to the pole upside down. Satisfied, he moved down the line, checking his clipboard, making sure that everyone was in the place they were supposed to be. Liesje, who was in the first line after the flag bearer with Rock, Walter Kippel, and a few others, carefully looked away as the Minister passed by. He looked downright silly in his golfing attire, and Liesje had to use all her willpower not to burst out laughing every time she looked at him. The Minister wanted to make it a point that he was here as an athlete, not a Minister, but the golf bag and clubs were slightly pushing the issue.

A murmur swept through the Spruitland delegation, starting from the back. It reached the front of the line at about the same time Olav Nett came rushing by, pale as a ghost, mumbling “Oh my God, oh my God…”

“His Majesty! His Majesty is here!” the murmur went. Miranda Stekkebeen started to turn around, but the flag started swaying. Olav grabbed her by the shoulders, set her straight again, and checked the flag for the eightteenth time. “Don’t panic, don’t panic!” he said, more to himself than to Miranda, then rushed towards the back of the line again.

“I thought Olav said the Royal Moron wasn’t coming?” Liesje frowned.

“He did,” Rock shrugged. “Guess His Majesty didn’t forget he signed up, after all.”

The sudden silence sweeping through the delegation announced the King’s arrival by mere seconds. Liesje and Rock instinctively straightened their shoulders.

“Splendid!” King Alfons exclaimed, passing by the delegation. “Marvelous! Wonderful!” As he reached the front of the line, Liesje’s eyes widened, but she had no trouble controlling her laughter this time. His Majesty, too, wanted to make it clear that he was not here as a King, but as an athlete, so he, too, was dressed in his sports attire. A green t-shirt and shorts – Spruitland’s official Ylompic kit – sneakers, white socks pulled up to just below the knee, covering a fair portion of the Royal Hairy Legs – but not enough of them – and of course, his miter.

“Jolly good,” the King marveled, slapping Rock Pikkenoog on the shoulder in an attempt at comeraderie. “Let’s win some medals, ey?”

“We’ll do our best, Your Highness.”

“Excellent! Right then… ah!” He turned towards Miranda Stekkebeen, grabbed the flag. “Thank you for holding that for me, young lady. You can take your place in the line now.”

“But…” Miranda looked as if her cocker spaniel had just been run over by a truck. “Nettie!?”

“Olav’s at the far end of the line,” King Alfons said. “I didn’t want him anywhere near me, in that silly outfit of his. Why don’t you go keep him company? Come on, run along now.”

Miranda opened her mouth to say something, then ran off, bursting into tears.

“Right then, let’s get this show on the road,” the King said, swinging the flag over his head onto his shoulder, swiftly knocking the miter off his head.

It was, in the best tradition of such things, tacky, embarrassing, patriotic and TV-friendly. Some team of creative types had obviously gone to about five minutes worth of effort just before the deadline for ideas to kick off Starblaydia's Ylompic participation in style. A large longboat, seemingly viking-style though actually a newly-made ship based on old vessels from the ancient Starblaydi tribe of the Phaena.

It set sail from Cythera, Starblaydia's most-southern coastal city and closest port to Tyrellia, just a short hop across the Nemyan Straights away from Casari. Twenty burly men and four women lined its sides with oars in their hands, at the head of them were Lambros Choutos and Anestis Tsitsonis, Starblaydia's two-time Gold Medalists in the Coxless Pairs - at Avid-Diord '04 AOlympic Games and the Kaza '08 Summer Olympics. The ten members of Starblaydia's sailing team worked the rigging that held the massive square white sail in place, bedecked with a massive golden eagle of Starblaydia sewn into it.

The prow of the boat was carved in the shape of a fearsome lion, Starblaydia's national animal, while from the top mast flew a streaming banner of Starblaydia's flag. Inside the boat, however, were lions of a different nature, Godwin Ezeobi foremost among them. Muscled like a bull, he carried the banner Starblaydia would fly at the games. Beside him were some of Starblaydia's best athletes: Eugene Overstreet the silver medal-winning swimmer; Ismael Raines, the fastest man over one-hundred metres in Starblaydia; Binky O'Brady, tiny Captain of the Starblaydi Rugby Sevens team and Dasha Tolkacheva, world famous women's footballer.

Behind them, however, were the real show-stopping, cringe-worthy embarrassing sights of two pure white horses, reminiscent of the ancient days of the Daii, who ruled Starblaydia in semi-mythical times with their powerful cavalry. Starblaydia were expected to take Golds in the Equestrian events, after all. These horses were ridden by Jillian Diamond and William Cole, the best riders on the best horses that Starblaydia could produce.

Around them, of course, were numerous camera teams, escorting ships beside them, and even an outboard motor, cunningly hidden so that the rowing in time to a heavy drum was merely for show. The show-stopping part of Team Starbladyia would soon arrive on the beaches of Tyrellia, and the Games could really begin.

The Kazoo athletes arrived a few minutes into the Opening Ceremonies.

"From what I've seen so far, Tyrellian University is really nice," commented world-class runner Chris Labosky. "And the people are very friendly. I'm so happy to be a part of these Ylompic games."

That was how it seemed to all of 470 athletes (who are competing in 252 events).

"It's amazing, just being here," said Labosky.

The Tyrellian Ylompics- Day/1

-----

Lucia Roberts sighed as she waited in the athlete staging area for the Opening Ceremonies. Mumbling to herself, the stress of trying to work out the sheer logistics of feeding, transporting, and preventing assasination attempts on the entire body of athletes was getting to her a little. But to be sure, the Organizers followed the two traditional rules of picking leaders.

First, it'll probably end up better if a woman does it. And second, never trust anyone from Tyrellia.

Therefore, it was Lucia Roberts from the far-off city of Shelby who had to sit, cramming bus and train schedules into her brain for the three and a half week Ylompic period and trying to negotiate with businesses for some free advertising in exchange for materials. It came down to the last minute, but as long as noone asked what the meat in the Ylompic Village was, she might even pull it off.

But there was one thing she had to do that was actually in the schedule, and that was give the pre-Opening-Ceremonies Athlete speech. An earlier one to the media and volunteers went well... but then again, athletes are a bit of a different bunch.

"Roberts, they're all here, finally." A volunteer said, sticking his head around the corner. Nodding to herself and taking a deep breath, she walked around the corner and onto the Fencing strip laid out on the stage of White Amphitheater.

"Hello, athletes. I'm Lucia Roberts, head of operati-"

"Take your top off!" yelled someone from the back rows.

"Shut the hell up." Roberts said, staring out into the crowd. "Like I was saying before I was awkwardly hit on from the back row, I'm Lucia Roberts, head of Operations for the Ylompic games. Now, there is a number of things we need to go over. Simple things."

"You'll note that when you registered, you got this nifty little envelope of materials. If you didn't, you should have. Because first, it has your athlete ID in it." Roberts said. "You'll note that yours is red. Without it, you're not getting into the venues, and that pretty much makes you entirely useless in this entire affair. If you see someone with a white one, they are staff, and you should listen to them. If they have a blue one, they are media, and you can tell them to sit and rotate."

"Secondly, there are these two small books. One is 'Thirty ways to get arrested in Casari' and the other is 'Thirty ways to get into a fight in Casari.' Now, for some of the boxers that are a little slow from having their ass beaten for years, both of these are bad things and the titles are sarcastic. You will be arrested. And I can't speak for most of the judges in the county, but if you were in an event against a Casaran, I'd might not see fit to give you bail."

"Third. Casaran weapon laws are rather strict. So therefore, none of the following may be carried by anyone other than approved personnel or by athletes involved in shooting events, in which case they can be carried in the Shooting Venue. Pistols, automatic pistols, submachine guns, rifles, assault rifles, battle rifles, sniper rifles, air rifles, swords, knives, machetes, clubs, bows and arrows, maces, flails, pikes, halbhrds, spears, axes, cleavers, battle axes, throwing axes, throwing knives, throwing stars, any sort of poison darts, crossbows, va'karela'ny, their takilan counterpart, or any sort of explosive device. All weapons must be turned over to security for the duration of your visit. Kay?"

"Try to lay off the drugs. There's a nice list in your pamphlet, but pretty much, unless it's alcohol-"

"Whoooohoo, alcohol!"

"Clearly, a substance that someone's on right now. You know this stuff, drugs are bad, don't do them, and in the name of all that's holy, don't sell them."

"And lastly... hmmm, how to put this. We know there might be a desire to see... 'the local scenery,' but we don't want masses of single mothers in 9 months. So use protection, because we're close to Legalese and I'm sure the single mothers wouldn't mind hiring lawyers and taking your endorsement money."

Roberts nodded. "That's all. You'll know when it's time to enter."

-----

After a long battle to decide the host of this year's Ylompic games, Eddie Brisari, host of Casari4's Worldsport and best known as drawmaster and host to endless matchdays of Casaran Soccer, Baseball, and whatever else they found fit to put on TV. Sitting the the press box, he took a deep breath as they counted him down.

"Tonight, the city of Tyrellia is home to the world's best athletes on one of the World's biggest stages. The Tyrellian Ylompics start tonight, with the Opening Ceremonies."

Brisari takes another deep breath and a drink of water while the musical opening plays, complete with flyovers of the city and it's various venues.

"Welcome to the Ylompic Games. I, as always, am Eddie Brisari, up here in the announcers booth over the packed Ylompic stadium. In the booth with me tonight, my fellow announcer, Fina Artinette."

"It's a pleasure to be here, Eddie."

"Tonight we sit back and watch the Opening Ceremonies, the last day of relaxation all these athletes will have before Twenty-Three full days of competition. But, naturally, we have to make it through tonight, which is starting with a set by the Casaran band NinjaPirate, who just completed a twenty-four week run on top of the Album sales charts."

-----

"Eddie, that was amazing. I didn't know you could build a human pyramid that high."

"That was quite an impressive display." Eddie replied, nodding. "Now, of course, we get to the Parade of Nations. There are twenty-five nations competing in the Ylompics, many of them with rather sizeable delegations. But as the host nation, the Casaran delegation will enter last, leaving the rest of the participants to enter in alphabetical order."

The opening flagbearer was visible in the shadow in the entrance. Then, suddenly, the cue was given and he marched out into the open.

*Algal States!*

"A midsize delegation from the Algal States is the first to enter the stadium. They're expected to perform well in the Canoeing events this year."

*Allanea!*

"Contesting mostly the shooting and team sports, the Allanean delegation was one of those nations who ended up making a bit of an impact with their arrival in country."

*Anastasiania!*

"Looking to be one of the powers on two wheels, Anastasiania hasn't limited themselves in the least, sending a large delegation in hopes of making an impact across the board."

*Andossa Se Mirtin Vega!*

"Another nation with a decidedly unique enterance, ASMV is another nation looking to make a decent impact on the medal count."

*Ariddia!*

"A mid-size contingent from the World Cup Founders Ariddia is the next team into the stadium. Keeping with that team, they feel that they'll be making an impact in Men's Football here at the Ylompics."

*Becquerelia!*

"And here's the Becquerelian delegation. A rather small delegation, the team hopes to make a heavy move in the modern pentathlon, where they might not have any strong competition."

*Bedistan!*

"A strong roar from the home crowd for the Bedistanis. Defending World Cup Champions, Bedistan is looking for considerable results, with the third-highest number of entries in the games."

*Ceorana!*

"The small delegation from Ceorana now entering, their best chance for metal is going to be at the Table Tennis tables."

*Chicanada!*

"103 entries from the Chicanadians. While a little light on athletes, they're bringing considerable strength to the Women's Football competition, which should be a heated one."

*Collonie!*

"An Interesting delegation from the nation of Collonie- every athlete entered under an Alias- and the same two, at that."

*Crna Gora Liv Eng!*

"Another small delegation from the nation of Crna Gora Liv Eng. From what our research has found, they should be having an effect on the outcome of the Triathlon."

*Dorian and Sonya!*

"This nation might be behind on technology a bit, but their skill with a sword is not to be underestimated in this competition."

*The Kazoo Peoples!*

"A good sized delegation from the Kazoo Peoples should be one of the athletics powerhouses here in the coming weeks."

*Kelse!*

"The delegation from Kelse is rather small, but they should form the main competition of the home team out on the waves of the bay."

*Krytenia!*

"Another decent cheer for the Kryties. Another of the big delegations competing here, their biggest chance for medals will be on the water as well in the rowing, as well as contributing to what should be a first-class Football competition here at the games."

*Liverpool England!*

"A smaller delegation from Liverpool England continues the Parade of Nations, with almost the entire group entered in Athletics."

*The Macabees!*

"A roar goes up fot the small delegation from the Second Empire. Lead by their Men's Football team, they're sure to have some decent support from the home crowd."

*Milchama!*

"And a massive delegation from Milchama is next. Milchama should be the main competition of Allanea at the Shooting Pavillion, but there's hardly an event that won't see an athlete from Milchama vying for the win."

*Rejistania!*

"Following Milchamia is another large delegation in Rejistania. They're expected to do quite well in Gymnastics by most observers."

*San Adriano!*

"The smallest delegation in the Ylompics is from San Adriano. They only have two athletes, one in swimming, the other in Table Tennis."

*Schiavonia!*

"Here's the squad from Schiavonia. You'd have to say that they look pretty strong in a number of events and should be a decent medal threat. The fans are starting to get a little uppity now as they wait for the home team to arrive."

*Spruitland!*

"A strong Cycling contingent will lead the team from Spruitland in the medal count, and probably be the main competition to Anastasiania."

*Starblaydia!*

"Starblaydia enters now, a team that should be strong in rowing and equestrian, but it's a moot-point now, most of the fans are much too eager to see the home side."

*Uhuh-Topia!*

"A small team from Uhuh-Topia is the final away side to enter the stadium. Their decent Women's Football team should lead the way, but the bigger spectacle's in the stands at this point. A distinct pounding is sounding in the stadium now, as the more active home fans jump in time, waiting for their team to arrive."

*Casari!*

"And it's as loud as it's been all night as the home team arrives. While some could say they're a little underrepresented in this competition, their entries in the Sailing competition should be a cornerstone for one of the biggest delegations in the Ylompics."

-----

"An exciting Opening Ceremonies, wasn't it, Eddie?"

"I'd say so. But it's going to be overshadowed quickly as the hardware begins to be handed out, starting tomorrow with the Women's Road Race. For the home fans, the networks of Casari plan to show every event on their broadcast and wire affiliates, while reports from many events will be available on radio as well. But until tomorrow, all that we have is speculation. So join us tomorrow, as we not only hand out the medals in the Women's Road Race, but begin qualifying in Women's Artistic Gymnastics, Sailing kicks off with the first races of the Men's and Women's 470s and the Finns, Swimming kicks off at the Aquatic Center, along with some Team Sports Pool Play. And of course, we'll be here for all of it. But for now, Goodnight, from the Tyrellian Ylompics."

“Take your top off!” King Alfons yelled at the woman up on stage.

Olav Nett winced. He considered urging Alfons to shut up, but His Majesty was His Majesty, after all, and he was clearly excited. Olav watched the King proudly waving his red badge in the air.

His Majesty took the two little books the speaker was talking about out of his envelope and looked at them, then turned to the Minister.

“Oh, Olav, this reminds me. We brought enough of the soft, triple layered toilet paper, right?”

“Of course, Your Highness.”

The Minister listened on as the chick on stage talked about banned weapons. Then a murmur went through the Spruitland delegation as she mentioned the no drug policy.

“Wooohooo, alcohol!” someone shouted, clearly not a Spruitlander. The Spruitland delegation was getting more animated by the second. "No drugs? What does she mean, no drugs?" Olav turned around and tried to hush them.

“Don’t worry!” he whisper-shouted. “Our stash in the boat is plenty large for everyone to make it through the Ylompics! Spread the word.”

The Spruitlanders calmed down just in time for the chick on stage to say “That’s all.” Olav hadn’t heard what else she had said. But it probably wasn’t important anyway.

"Ok guys and girls. The rules say no swords, knives, machetes, clubs, bows and arrows, maces, flails, pikes, halbhrds, spears, axes, cleavers, battle axes, throwing axes, throwing knives, throwing stars, any sort of poison darts, crossbows. That means every single one of you had better begin to cough up this stuff."

"What the hell do they mean no throwing axes? How am I going to catch my dinner?"

"They serve us dinner, Sid. Get over it. Rules are rules."

"But did you see that meat? What the hell was that? Is it fresh? Is it even meat?"

"Can it, Sid!"

"And who was the jerk that yelled take your top off? Everyone knows it does more good to remove the bottoms."

"Sid!"

"Oh Ok! You guys are no fun."

One of the girls in the group turned to her friend. "Yeah. Bottoms off does make more sense. Maybe we can catch that green haired guy......."

"No weapons! Who the hell made that rule up?"

Oh dear thought Josh as he tried to stop his athletes from rioting.

"Just live with it, we'll get through the games without any weapons. Anyway, we're close enough to Milchama so that if you get really worried you can go there and shoot or stab or kill somebody."

"I challenge you to a duel! We shall have weapons or you will die."

"GODDAMNIT!!! This isn't Milchama, there are actual laws in the fuckin streets, and the policeman will actually try to protect people not hurt them. So for the love of god cool it or your gone from the team!"

"Sheesh coach ok fine."

Josh knew this was just the beginning of the descent.

The room was silent as representatives of different delegations crammed themselves into a room only called the "Draw room." Because there wasn't a better time to schedule it, it was about 12 AM when they finally started.

Lucia Roberts sighed. "OK, let's do this. Start the little ping-pong ball machine, we'll start with baseball." A volunteer nodded and flipped the switch.

Nothing happened.

"Try it again."

Nothing happened.

Roberts cursed. "Alright, someone find me a fucking hat, let's get this over with." she said, grabbing a schedule and tearing page after page off of it. "Okay, we'll get through this. Tear it up, one team name a peace. Let's draw."

So there they stayed, waiting long into the night, drawing name after name until the Pools were filled.

The Tyrellian Ylompic Team Sport Group Draws

Baseball
Pool A: Milchama, Spruitland, Liverpool England, Collonie, Crna Gora Liv Eng
Pool B: Casari, Allanea, Anastasiania, The Kazoo Peoples, Bedistan

Softball
Pool A: Casari, Rejistania, Milchama, Kelse, Andossa Si Mitrin Vega, Allanea, Collonie

Men's Basketball
Pool A: Krytenia, Becquerelia, Collonie, Schiavonia, Andossa Si Mitrin Vega
Pool B: Starblaydia, Milchama, Bedistan, Casari, Rejistania, Allanea

Women's Basketball
Pool A: Allanea, Collonie, Rejistania, Bedistan
Pool B: Andossa Si Mitrin Vega, Schiavonia, Casari, Anastasiania, Milchama

Men's Football
Pool A: Allanea, Krytenia, Collonie, Spruitland
Pool B: Rejistania, Casari, Starblaydia, Bedistan, Schiavonia
Pool C: Crna Gora Liv Eng, Milchama, Macabees, Algal States, Ariddia
Pool D: Anastasiania, Becquerelia, Liverpool England, The Kazoo Peoples, Uhuh-Topia

Women's Football
Pool A: Starblaydia, Collonie, Schiavonia, Krytenia
Pool B: Algal States, Casari, Allanea, Liverpool England
Pool C: Uhuh-Topia, Chicanada, Rejistania, Ariddia
Pool D: Becquerelia, Milchama, Spruitland, Bedistan, Anastasiania

Men's Handball
Pool A: Rejistania, Milchama, Schiavonia, Anastasiania, Allanea
Pool B: Kelse, The Kazoo Peoples, Andossa Si Mitrin Vega, Casari, Collonie

Women's Handball
Pool A: Collonie, Milchama, Anastasiania, Rejistania
Pool B: Casari, Kelse, Allanea, Schiavonia

Men's Volleyball
Pool A: Starblaydia, Becquerelia, Collonie, Kelse, Allanea
Pool B: Bedistan, Milchama, Casari, Anastasiania

Women's Volleyball
Pool A: Anastasiania, Kelse, Collonie, Bedistan, Milchama
Pool B: Andossa Si Mitrin Vega, Casari, Becquerelia, Starblaydia, Allanea

Men's Beach Volleyball
Pool A: Rejistania, Andossa Si Mitrin Vega, Algal States, Casari-2
Pool B: Ariddia, Schiavonia-1, Starblaydia, Kelse
Pool C: Bedistan-2, Allanea, Collonie-2, Krytenia-1, Schiavonia-2
Pool D: Collonie-1, Bedistan-1, Krytenia-2, Casari-1, Andossa Si Mitrin Vega-2

Women's Beach Volleyball
Pool A: Anasrasiania, Casari-2, Algal States-1, Spruitland, Ariddia
Pool B: Casari-1, Krytenia-1, Andossa Si Mitrin Vega-2, Schiavonia-1, Bedistan-2
Pool C: Krytenia-2, Bedistan-1, Starblaydia, Allanea, Kelse
Pool D: Algal States-2, Collonie-1, Andossa Si Mitrin Vega-1, Rejistania, Collonie-2, Schiavonia-2

Men's Hockey
Pool A: Liverpool England, Rejistania, Schiavonia, Casari, Chicanada
Pool B: Milchama, Krytenia, Bedistan, The Kazoo Peoples, Collonie

Women's Hockey
Pool A: Chicanada, Milchama, Casari, Bedistan
Pool B: Krytenia, The Kazoo Peoples, Collonie, Schiavonia

Men's Water Polo
Pool A: Kelse, The Kazoo Peoples, Algal States, Bedistan, Collonie
Pool B: Casari, Liverpool England, Milchama, Chicanada

Women's Water Polo
Pool A: Collonie, Casari, Milchama, Bedistan
Pool B: Kelse, Algal States, The Kazoo Peoples, Spruitland

Men's Rugby Sevens
Pool A: Casari, Chicanada, Collonie, Krytenia, Milchama, Schiavonia, Starblaydia

Men's ODI Cricke
Pool A: Anastasiania, Casari, Collonie, Krytenia, Milchama, Schiavonia, Starblaydia

Women's ODI Cricket
Pool A: Andossa Si Mitrin Vega, Anastasiania, Casari, Collonie, Milchama, Schiavonia

Schedules
GROUPS OF 4:
Day 1: 1v2, 3v4
Day 2: 1v3, 2v4
Day 3: 1v4, 2v3

GROUPS OF 5:
Day 1: 1v2, 3v4, 5 Bye
Day 2: 1v3, 2v5, 4 Bye
Day 3: 1v4, 3v5, 2 Bye
Day 4: 2v3, 4v5, 1 Bye
Day 5: 1v5, 2v4, 3 Bye

GROUPS OF 6:
Day 1: 1v2, 3v4, 5v6
Day 2: 1v3, 2v5, 4v6
Day 3: 1v4, 3v5, 2v6
Day 4: 2v3, 4v5, 1v6
Day 5: 1v5, 2v4, 3v6

GROUPS OF 7:
Day 1: 2v7, 3v6, 4v5, 1 Bye
Day 2: 1v7, 2v5, 3v4, 6 Bye
Day 3: 1v6, 7v5, 2v3, 4 Bye
Day 4: 1v5, 6v4, 7v3, 2 Bye
Day 5: 1v4, 5v3, 6v2, 7 Bye
Day 6: 1v3, 4v2, 6v7, 5 Bye
Day 7: 1v2, 4v7, 5v6, 3 Bye

Lianne Schebel awoke early and prepared herself for the Women's Road race. This was to be the first event of the Ylompics and the first chance for ASMV to take home a medal. She was still more than a little pissed that Anastasiania and Spruitland got all the praise and hype for the cycling events. Damn it! She was ranked in the top 5 in the world in her event. Oh well. She would just have to send those other girls home wishing they had the gold.

“ARIDDIA!”

Shuj We’o walked proudly into the stadium, as the crowd cheered each new delegation. He held the black, red and green flag of Ariddia up steadily, and looked round, feeling almost a little awed at the magnificent ceremony.

Directly ahead was the delegation from Andossa Se Mitrin Vega, led by Courtney Fallon in her wheelchair. Behind him walked almost all of his one hundred and twenty-eight compatriots, wearing traditional Indigenous Ariddian light, plant-woven clothing, dyed red and black, the national colours. Many were waving at the spectators, grinning, thrilled to be taking part in this historic moment. Somewhere in the stadium, We’o knew, reporters from Public International News Ariddia (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/Public_International_News_Ariddia) would be commenting on the images provided by the media networks of Casari. Balancing the flag, he waved too, smiling proudly.

“BECQUERALIA!”

As the crowd roared in support of the next delegation to enter, We’o continued walking, leading his fellow Ariddians round the stadium, his flag held up high. These were moments he would treasure, regardless of how the rest of the competition went.

Only a few Ariddians were missing out on the Opening Ceremony, and all of those would be competing the following day. Deirdre Khangal would be the first athlete to represent her nation in these Games, in the Women’s Road Race, and she had preferred to remain perfectly fit and rested on the last day before the competition. A few swimmers were also missing, although the gymnasts were all here, as well as Ariddia’s one and only athlete entered in a sailing event, Séraphine Djidonou.

“BEDISTAN!” a voice boomed, heralding the entrance of the next delegation. We’o shifted his grip firmly on the flagpole, and grinned.

These were going to be glorious Games. . .

In many delegations, the question who carried the flag led to real fights and all sorts of problems. In Rejistania the issue was solved traditionally: The oldest member of a family represents a family and therefore the oldest member of the team represents the delegation and carries the Orange-White-Blue flag. Isi Y, one of the female competitors in marathon was the person in question here (this had the positive side-effect that foreign commentators could pronounce it). In the opening ceremony, the rejistanis were all clad in the Orange-White-Blue uniforms. Somehow this made the rejistanian delegation look as if from an anime film. Later rejistanian media reported well about the ceremony, but for most of the Rejistani delegation, what the media said was far, far away. They had their competitions and various social activities to concentrate on. After the opening ceremony, the groups were drawn and the different teams prepared for their respective opponents.

"Now wait just one minute here!"

The team was gathered in quite possibly the largest conference room in the entire Ylompic village, and every last one of them heard women's beach volleyballer Sara Templeton voice her anger.

She ran over to the nearest person she could find, which happened to be diver Carlton Hunt, and pointed angrily at the group draw sheet. "What happened to our other women's beach volleyball team? They've only got one listed here! Same for the men, they left one of our teams off there too!"

Fingers trembling, she reached for the phone. Whichever poor Casaran would be on the other end was about to get a very unpleasant phone call.

"And now on KBS One...we're live in Tyrellia for the first full day of the Ylompic Games, with Claire Glatzik and John Museew."

*Cue dramatic music and titles*

CG: "Good morning from Tyrellia, where the sun is shining. But will we be more interested in some other shiny things over the next two weeks? The journey starts today for our men and women in sky blue."

JM: "That's right Claire, and let's have a look at some of the day's big action to come."

*Run VT!*

JM: "We'll have all the action from poolside, as the Osmond brothers look for a place in tomorrow's 200 Metre Freestyle final."
CG: "Out on the Casaran roads, we'll see the first gold medal won in the Women's Track Cycling Road Race. Candice Firman leads the three-strong contingent in that one."
JM: "We'll have highlights from the gymnactics centre and out to sea in the first races of the Sailing regatta."
CG: "There's pugilistic and martial arts action as the Boxing and Judo get underway."
JM: "Martin Baggaley is one of the favourites for the Men's Table Tennis; we'll have full coverage of his first round game, as well as tose of the two Lees, Green and Hodge."
CG: "And of course, pressing your red button lets you choose which event you watch; among the other choices today are basketball, hockey, football and volleyball. Full interactive schedules can be found online at www.kbs.kt/ylompics."

*Cut back to studio.*

JM: "But first, it's off to the magnificent Ylompic Aquatic Center for the swimming events; your commentary team are Georgina McCarthy, and first, Kevin Klatzen!"

“SAN ADRIANO!”

Following in the footsteps of Rejistania’s huge delegation, Sabrina Vannucci held herself tall and proud, and tried not to seem in the least bit intimidated. She held the green and red flag of San Adriano up in full sight of the cameras momentarily trained on her and fellow athlete Benjamin Eash, just behind her. The flag (http://ns.goobergunch.net/wiki/index.php/San_Adriano) was shaped somewhat awkwardly, stretching vertically rather than horizontally, but in this particular instance it was no real problem, and it flapped gently in the slight breeze.

Sabrina had never seen so many people gathered in one place in her entire life. She had no idea how many people were present in the stadium; she had no point of reference to assess their numbers. But then, even some of the delegations had almost as many athletes as there were people living in the whole of her home nation. It was a striking reminder of how tiny her homeland really was. She wondered suddenly how many billions of people were seeing her on their television screens around the world right now.

Still, she smiled for the spectators and cameras, and decided she was just going to enjoy it and have fun. There was a thrilling party atmosphere here in the stadium, and she would make the most of every moment.

“Allanea!”

The United States banner unfurled at the front of the delegation, done in bright colors, its stars and stripes showing against the dark-blue sports teams uniforms as they marched by, an intimidating – and inspiring symbol of what Allanea stood for. First marched the members of the individual sports, most favored by the people of Allanea, her educators and intellectuals. From the tribunes, the fans cheered, screaming the names of their favorite sportsmen.

On one of the seats, a fourteen year old girl rose next to her mother, ripping her shirt and skirt off and running onto the stairs between the seat rows, then removing the rest of her clothes, revealing an inscription on her naked skin saying RONALD I WANT YOUR BABY. Before her mother could quite manage to restrain her, Ronald North, Allanea's famous 3-position rifle shooter, sent her a blown kiss, eliciting a squeal of pure joy from her.

From one of the other Allanean seats, two young men rose, unwrapping a huge banner, supported by their classmates. The banner read, in large capital letters: Manya For The Win!!!!. Manya Pizdetsova smiled back, winking as she counted the four exclamation marks.

But the insanity would not end there, if it would end at all, as two Ambivalentira protestos were, too, among the crowd, with a banner saying something totally different: END THE EXPLOITATION! GRADUATED INCOME TAXES FOR ALLANEA NOW!. The other Allaneans reacted with a storm of laughter, and one of the sportsmen had problems walking on – he was in fact laughing that hard.

“Time?”

Roger Merx, Spruitland’s cycling coach, checked his watch. “Start in twenty.”

Valerie Platt acknowledged him with a brief nod, then turned the volume on her walkman back to full blast and leaned forward on her exercise bike, increasing the pace a little.

Roger wanted to tell her to slow it down, but Valerie was a pro, and she knew her body better than anybody. And she was ‘in the zone,’ never a good time to bother an athlete. Valerie wanted a medal today, a gold one even. She knew she had a decent shot at it, and had been building her season to work up to this event. But sometimes, when an athlete wants something badly, they push the envelope just a touch too far. Cycling isn’t just about being able to ride fast, it’s also about knowing when to save energy.

He gave her a few more minutes, then drew her attention and made the ‘wind down’ sign. Valerie nodded, lowered the pace, sat up on the bike and took off the walkman. Roger gave her a canteen. “How do you feel?”

“Fine.”

“Knee bothering you?”

“Nope.”

The answers satisfied Roger. No bullshit, short and to the point answers, that meant Valerie was up for it. He should really just leave it at that and let her do her thing. But he was the coach, after all.

“You do know,” he said with a smile, “that this is the road race, right? Not the time trial. You’ll have plenty of time to warm up in the race.”

“No I won’t.”

“I just think…”

“Drop it, Rog, it’s a dead horse.”

“All I’m saying is, relax a bit, see how the race goes. You can still…”

“And what, sprint for it? And on a good day, if I’m lucky, maybe beat Hartskog?

“You’re not slow, Val, you just…”

“Slow enough, and you know it.”

She got off the exercise bike and nodded at her mechanic who was waiting nearby with her race bicycle. Roger sighed, but he knew this wasn’t the time to try and change her mind. He had tried hard enough the previous days.

“Alright,” he said, “go for it, then. But watch your heart rate. I don’t want you blowing up your engine.” It was a needless comment, Roger knew. Valerie was a time trialist as well. If anyone knew how to ride by her heart rate, it was her.

“I’m not worried about that,” she smiled. “I’ve got the biggest engine of them all. That’s why I’ve gotta do it this way. It’s a crap course, Rog. The only hill – what’s it called, Ari Hill? - hell, I’ve seen tits bigger than that silly thing. So I’m gonna lay on the pace from the start, make those girls sweat, try to break them. If it does end up in a sprint, at least it’ll be a dead man’s sprint. I’ve got a better shot in one of those.”

“Alright, but…” Roger stopped himself. “Nevermind. You know what to do. Just bring it home, kid. Spruitland’s counting on you.”

“Great, no pressure at all then,”she winked, riding off towards the starting line.

“Hey, just remember,” Roger shouted after her, “if you win, you get to have dinner with His Majesty in his private chambers tonight!”

“Oh bloody hell. You’re kidding, right? Rog? ROGER?!? Tell me you’re kidding, PLEASE?!”

On the first day of the Ylompics, Algal States athletes were already walking on air because they got to enter the opening ceremonies first. Flagbearer William Kelly told the media later on over the phone that although he knew it was just alphabetical it was still "a rush" to be the the first athlete into the stadium. Later on when the draws for the group events were announced, the womens' football team was a little startled that they would start off their tournament versus the host nation, Casari, but eventually settled down and decided to just treat it like any other game. The other teams were much more noncommittal but the World class beach volleyball team of sisters Allie and Kelly Thibault seemed extremely eager to start their tournament. The small swimming team and the sailing team were also eagerly anticipating their day one events. The one Downside for the nation was that the representatives from Algal States television still haven't arrived due to getting held up by red tape at Letete international Airport back home. So fans who couldn't travel to the games are having a hard time getting informed on the accomplishments of their athletes and also could not watch the opening ceremonies since ASTV is the only channel available. ASTV has promised to clear up the problem as soon as possible, apparently several of their reporters forgot to fill out their passport applications in time for their flights, ASTV is searching their roster for additional personnel, who have passports, to send to the games.

Tonie Gutreuter looked with disdain at the contraption in front of her. "I thought this was supposed to be a riding event."

Virgilio Haagensen didnt look like he liked the idea any better. "It is riding. That is what we have to ride. Somehow."

"What!!!" Tonie was furious. "Riding. Like horses, donkeys, elephants, dragons, pegasi, or even giant spiders. Not this!"

"Sorry, Dear. You have to do it now." Virgilio had watched some of the other cyclists practice earlier in the day, but this was Tonie's first look at the bike.
"You put your feet here and push, and these little handles will slow you down."

Tonie climbed on the bike, put her feet on the pedals, and began to move slowly forward. It didnt take long to figure out the balance thing and soon she was flying around the parking lot. "Now how the hell do I stop this thing?"

"Squeeze the levers with your hand!" Virgilio yelled.

Suddenly the back of the bike rose into the air, throwing Tonie over the handles to roll across the pavement.

Virgilio looked up in horror. "Guess that move needs some work."

For your consideration:

The Schedule in .xls for those who do (http://bellsouthpwp.net/h/a/harleyt_1387/Tyrelliasgs3.xls).
The Schedule in CSV for those who don't (http://bellsouthpwp.net/h/a/harleyt_1387/Tyrelliasgs3alt.csv).

Let it be known that the cutoff for Day/1 is now! Scores soon.

Kelse Starts Strong at Ylompics
Saint-Monica Nautique

Tyrellia, CAS - The full Tyrellian Ylompics delegation, a group of 232 athletes and almost 350 others, arrived together at the international airport in Tyrellia from a delayed flight on Air Nautique from Jacques Ajaccio International Airport in Ajaccio. Sadly, the delegation was late for the Opening Ceremony, however they hope to make that up with a substantial medal count for the Closing Ceremonies. Would-be flag-bearers Kina and Kora Detorro appeared in an interview for Athletic De Lux shortly after their arrival, and they said "It's sad and unfortunate, but we all have to move on. They're was nothing that we could've done, I mean all flights out of Ajaccio were either cancelled or delayed because of that fog... Oh well, we'll still represent Kelse well!"

The team has moved in successfully into the Olympic Village, and all of the athletes have adjusted to their new home outside of Kelse. Accompanied with the Vice-President of the Kelsian National Olympic Comittee, the team is liking there new surroundings. A few girls from the National Softball Team were spotted hitting the bars in Tyrellia, and reports say they got a little friendly with the locals. Coach Jacques Damoné said in an interview, "Our girls are back at the Village, and believe me, a curfew has been put in place. They are fine, it was just a little harmless fun, and they will be ready to start."

In other news, only last night did the De Lux Television Network beat out the Kelsian Broadcast Company (KBC) for rights to broadcast the Tyrellian Ylompic Games along with the I Winter Games. Through this deal, most events will either be shown on Athletic De Lux (Channel 15), the DL (Channel 21), and De Lux Reloaded (Channel 32) while all primetime events will be shown on De Lux (Channel 7). All showtimes can be viewed at their website, http://www.delux.ke.

The events have already begun, and Kelses' first event recently finished with Kelse finishing strong. In the Women's Gymnastics Qualifying, Team Kelse finished 2nd place overall behind Ariddia with a score of 155.847. Individual Qualifiers include Reneé Letenero, Amelia Ayala, and Johanna Yizel for the Individual All-Around, Gia Valetto for the Floor Exercise, Amelia Ayala for the Uneven Bars, Reneé Letenero for the Vault, Johanna Yizel, Amelia Ayala, Reneé Letenero, and Gia Valetto for the Balance Beam. That's all from Tyrellia, and until next time, go Kelse!

Xeahieil Maohi had the race of her life. The Jinhesi said reporters before the race: "I may quote Kurudi 100: Hey, no matter how you rate, all we wanna do is participate! This pretty much summarizes the situation for the rejistanian cycling team. We know we are outofnowheres here." When she finished on a sensational 8th place she herself couldn't believe it at first, she did never expect to reach a single digit rank. TV esuvorto showed her celebrating the 8th place as if it was the 1st.

The Rejistanian Jimnasti'my'he'ny (or female gymnastic team) did not fulfill the expectations at all. Of course, in every event, at least one rejistani qualified, but general consensus was: we must improve of suffer defeat in the next competitions. Asahelekimi Kereselehini commented: "We did come here in order to just participate, we came here to win."

Ila Kansu was the tragical figure in the rejistanian team today. He missed the qualification into the final by 5 hundredths. He later said to reporters: "Of course I am disappointed! Very much! I can see a certain consolation in the fact that it was not a high margin, but then the same fact bugs me..."

Nana I Ha~e qualified from the 100m Breaststroke Semifinal behind of Milchaman Abby Brickley and before Bedistani Kyung-soon Hae-ho. She expressed that she was really happy and hopes to have the same amount of luck in the final tomorrow.

What? You're looking for the results thread? Why, here's a link. (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=473669)

Day 2 Closes at Ylompics
Saint-Monica Nautique

Tyrellia, CAS - As Day 2 came to a close, the results from the Kelsian athletes were generally good, with some rising above the occasion while others fell short. At the Weili Rowing and Yacht club, the Sailing Event kicked off with the Mens' 470 Race 1, were Ryan Nortel and Jose Sonero finished 1st with a time of 40:01.67. However, in Race 2, they finished 4th with a time of 41:36.79, giving them 2nd Place overall in the Mens' 470 behind home-team Casari. At the Women's 470 Race 1, twins Kina and Kora Detorro finished 3rd with a time of 41:00.77, however they fell behind in Race 2 with a time of 42:33.17, finishing 7th. Overall, the twins rank 4th in the Standings.

At Crie Field, the Softball Team suffered a heart breaking lose to Andossa Si Mirtin Vega, 7-3. They are hopeful, however, of getting back on their feet and winning their next few games. Also suffering a bad loss was the Mens' Handball Team, losing to The Kazoo Peoples 26-11. Coach Anthony Letondro said in an interview after the game, "We are a great team, but we're just not that good against these International powerhouses. I really hope we can bounce back, I mean we've got some good talent on this team." The day ended on a lighter note, however, as the Womens' Volleyball Team crushed Anastasiania in three quick games 25-5, 25-11, and 25-8. The win puts them at the top of their Group, which includes Bedistan, Milchama, and Collonie. Also coming off with a win were the Mens' Water Polo, who defeated The Kazoo Peoples with a score of 15-8. That's all from Tyrellia, and until next time, go Kelse!

DAY ONE YLOMPIC WRAP-UP

Men's Football

Pool D
Liverpool England 3, The Kazoo Peoples 2
Anastasiania 1, Becquerelia 2

Pool D Pts W T L GF GA
Becquerelia 3 1 0 0 2 1
Liverpool England 3 1 0 0 3 2
Uhuh-Topia 0 0 0 0 0 0
The Kazoo Peoples 0 0 0 1 2 3
Anastasiania 0 0 0 1 1 2

While the Becquerelian Men's Football Team competes in World Cup qualifying, a second national team had to be created. Led by U-21 Head Coach Ronan Tynes, and full of a combination of U-21 players, players who didn't make the national team, and led by Captain and Forward Phillip Gersh, who had been dumped from the national team earlier, this team hoped to bring football gold.

It wasn't a bad start, overall. Becquerelia's forwards Phillip Gersh and Titian Malstrom scored goals, and Becquerelia picked up their first Ylompic victory.

The next match-up will be against the rested Uhuh-Topia.

Women's Volleyball

Pool B
Andossa Si Mirtin Vega def. Casari (25-17, 25-10, 15-25, 25-14)
Starblaydia def. Becquerelia (25-6, 25-12, 25-16)

Pool B W L
Andossa Si Mirtin Vega 1 0
Starblaydia 1 0
Allanea 0 0
Casari 0 1
Becquerelia 0 1

Becquerelia has a rough start in women's volleyball, getting beat three games to nothing by Starblaydia. And the next match promises to be just as tough, against a undefeated Andossa Si Mirtin Vega.

Dorian & Sonya Finish Day 2. Nothing Spectacular.

The Women's road race finished with Spruitland taking home the first gold medal of the Ylompic Games. Tonie Gutreuter, who had litterally learned to ride her bike just minutes before the race, surprised everyone by finishing mid-pack and 1 place ahead of that loud mouthed bitch from ASMV. That was definately our highlight of the day.

In the men's Finn Race, Len Durol had a very mediocre performance and finished way off the pace.

And that is really all there is to report just yet. Our guys and girls with the swords havent had an opportunity to carve up the competition just yet.

GOLD for Mancuso!

Spruitland’s Ylompic campaign could not have gotten off to a better start. Traditionally, the first medals of the games would be handed out in the women’s cycling road race, and the pressure was on for the three Spruitland competitors. Cycling is serious business for us, and the nation would not be pleased without at least a bronze, preferably a gold medal. And the Spruitland cyclists did the expected.

They did not do it in the expected manner, though. Valerie Platt was largely considered one of the big favorites for today’s race, but it was her team mate, 24 year old Elke Mancuso, who brought home the bacon. Platt did play a role in that, however, and not a small one.

Platt launched the first attack of the day, right from the start, to the surprise of most everybody. Suicide, anyone with a bit of cycling knowledge thought. And that’s what it turned out to be, but Platt went out with a bang which had a decent blast radius.

Her attack forced the other favorites – Minna Hartskog, for starters, but also Schmith, Schebel and Suhr – into the defensive. Schmith (CHI) and Hartskog (ANA) went into the pursuit in the second round and caught up with Platt, forcing the others into a long, hard-working race to try and bring them back.

They did catch them, just over two laps from the finish, but it had taken a lot of energy from most of the main players. Which left the door wide open for some of the second tier riders who managed to spare themselves in the chase. Elke Mancuso and Chicanada’s Aida Pasada battled it out for the gold, and Mancuso made a small gap in the final kilometer, enough to be able to look over her shoulder, sit up, relax, and celebrate extensively as she crossed the finish line for the biggest win of her career.

“This is as much Val’s as it is mine,” Mancuso says, showing off her shiny gold medal. “I got to relax in the back of the pack for most of the race thanks to her. This was a team effort.”

Whether the team effort was a pre-determined team tactic as well, and Platt had this outcome in mind when she launched her early attack, is another question altogether.

“Nope, I was going for glory,” Platt says laconically. “Just blew up my engine. Glad it worked out in the end, though.”

Non-cycling summary

A fair bit of action for Spruitlanders on the opening day of the competitions, and a pretty satisfying day in general. The swimmers did well, with two of the three that saw action today securing a spot in the final, and only Nathaniël Kostos narrowly missing out, achieving a ninth time in the 100 m Backstroke Semi Final.

Mixed results in sailing, with Suzie Nonkula and Sigrid Planck in the Women’s 470 class having to make up a crappy Race 1 with a strong Race 2 to keep them in the middle of the table in the overall standings. Aaron Bakboordt did catch the right wind, however, managing a third and first place to take the firm lead in the Finn class.

Many of the team competitions started their group play today as well. The Wascals, Spruitland’s baseball team, started off with a surprising 3-6 win over Milchama, and the Wabbits proved the more experienced side than Collonie, trouncing them 6-0, with a hattrick from Dirk Jools.

It’ll be more of the same tomorrow, with group play continuing, more races in the sailing competition, and the rowers will start their heats as well. There’ll be much more swimming, with 4 medals to be handed out – for which two Spruitlanders are still in contention – but the focus of the nation will be on cycling again, with the Men’s Road Race taking place, and another medal is expected to be added to the tally.

And for now, while we’re still on top, here’s a nice, clean overview of the medal count. Pretty, isn’t it?

Nation G S B T
Spruitland 1 0 0 1
Chicanada 0 1 0 1
Bedistan 0 0 1 1

Capital District Standard

Day 2 Recap at the 1934 Summer Ylompics
*it's 1934 in Chicanada!*

Chicanada scored it's first ever Ylompic medal today, as Aida Pasada of Spears Crossings scored a shocking Silver Medal in the Women's Road Race.

Pasada, who only made the team after runner-up to Lana Schmith in the Summer Qualifiers, shot up the ranks and finished only 7 seconds behind Elke Mancuso in the race. Schmith, a medal favorite going into the games, finished nearly ten minutes back of Pasada and nowhere near contention. Schmith still has the Time Trial, not her strong point, to try and get a medal.

The Kodiak Womens Gymnastics Team slipped into the Finals, finish a half point ahead of Andossa Si Mitrin Vega to make the Medal Round in 6th. The good news continued for the whole team, as National Champion and team captain Kari Elain made the All-Around finals as well as all the event finals, making it as the top scorer of all competitors.

Which girls qualified for Finals:

Team Event - All (Sixth)
All Around - Kari Elain (First)
Floor - Kari Elain (Sixth), Lisa Tzian (Eighth), Analiese Vanderlon (Thirteenth)
Bars - Kari Elain (Second), Rachel Long (Twelfth)
Vault - Margaret Weisel (Second), Kari Elain (Third), Jennifer Tjian (Eleventh)
Beam - Kari Elain (Fifth)

For those keeping track, the Chicanada Cup winners on each event made their finals (Kari in AA and Beam, Analiese in Floor, Rachel in Bars and Jennifer in Vault). While a team medal might be a stretch, the Chicanada Gymnastics Federation believes four medals are still possible for the women in AA, Bars and Vault, and would not be surprised by a Kodiak sweep of Floor or Vault.

Not putting any pressure on the mens team at all, eh?

In Mens Water Polo, Chicanada got splashed over 13-4 by Milchama. While two victories to make the Medal Round is entirely possible, it would need to happen in light of fixing some major holes in the squad's defense, as well as getting more help for the two goalkeeps who could not keep the Milchama side from scoring alone.

Port James Sentinal-Telegraph-Telegram-Update-Register-Sun-Star-News-Miracle

Special Ylompics Section

Bad first day for Milchama

Yes technically its Day 2 here at the Ylompics, but considering the only thing that happened was the opening ceremonies which, despite its pomp and gallantry, is not an actual sporting event does not actually count for a day. Now that we've explained why it's the first day we can go on to the actual events, the Warriors did not win any metals but considering there was only one metal event and it was in cycling it does not matter. So far Milchama has zero metals.

Now onto the event by event report:

Swimming: The day was mixed for the Milchamians in the pool. Timothy Gerhk qualified for the breaststroke final in the third position. Then in the 200 meter freestyle none of the Milchamian athletes even qualified in a heat. Thomas Delino and Abby Brickley both also qualified for the metal rounds in high positions (second and first respectively). Brandon Nicks though was a big dissapointment however, as he failed to qualify for anything in both of his events so far. His best event, the 100m butterfly, has not come up yet so we expect better things from him soon.

Gymnastics: It was women's gymnastics today and Milchama did not qualify for the team finals, finishing last in the field of 8. Indiviually the Warriors qualified Ruby Halbert to the all aroud competition, Wilma Tavarez qualified for the floor exercise, both Nancy Winkle and Florence Salvidar qualified for the uneven bars, Florence Salvidar also qualified for the vault, and finally both Nancy Winkle and Ruby Halbert qualified for the balance beam.

Team Sports: Yes what you saw online yesterday is 100% true I'm afraid, Milchama DID lose to Spruitland in baseball. The new team under the old Manager Jack Yosefon did not do so well but according the Yosefon they will turn it around tommorow and win. In softball the story was very similar as the Milchamians allowed 3 runs in the 9th winning and lost against the gunnut nation of Allanea. Soccer though was a different story as the AOCAF squad did excellent, dispatching the Crna Grna Liv Eng 6-1. Farenstein, Lintooney, Nackson, and Anton were the scorers. Then in men's handball the Warriors could not stop the relentless attack of the Rejistanians! (attacking Rejistanians wow!) and lost 30-18. Women's volleyball had the day off, which is probably a good thing. Then in Men's Water polo the Warriors dominated scoring 13 times in a 13-4 anihilation of the Chicanadans. Finally Milchama was shown what true cricket as they lost by 89 against Krytenia.

Ylompics Begin With Mixed Results

This is Bryce Favre reporting from the Tyrellian Ylompic Games in Casari.

Day 2 action was fast and highly contested as several events got underway.

In the Women’s Road Race, Lianne Schebel had probably the worst performance of her career as she failed to even make it close with the event winners. Even some rider who fell off her bike three times finished ahead of Lianne in this one. Valerie Platt of Spruitland was the probable cause of Lianne’s problems as she set a blistering pace from the start and Lianne carelessly fell into the trap.

Our women’s gymnastics team did better than expected, as we weren’t even sure they knew how to do this stuff. Agrippina Pedlar the best all around performance of her life, finishing in the top 10 overall, a surprising 3rd on the floor exercise, and 4th in the vault. Kaitlynn Albarez finished 13th on the floor exercise. Ewa Skorcz finished 5th on the uneven bars. Pura Peroff finished 5th in the vault behind Agrippina.

In the men’s 470 sailing event, Alvaro Caranza and Rob Conell put in a rather dismal performance in their two races to sit next to last on the board. It was Twanda Olsin and Ja Faylor in the women’s 470 event who surprised everyone by putting two good races together and moving into 3rd on the board.

Softball pool play turned in perhaps the most dominant performance of the day for ASMV as our ladies crushed Kelse 7-3. And Men’s handball turned in perhaps our worst as Casari crushed us 28-18.

But we did return the favor to the host Casari women’s volleyball team by handing them a 25-17, 25-10, 15-25, 25-14 defeat. Not even close.

Overall it was a great start to these games for ASMV. Now to see what tomorrow holds.

ANN Sports

Camera shifts to an image of an Allanean flag, and the anthem is played. A lady appears on the screen, wearing for some reason a set of glistening latex clothing

“Good day, friends, and today’s broadcast from the Ylompics is brought to you by the Allanean News Networks – all the news that’s fit, and the news that doesn’t, too!” Well, first are the unsurprising news. In Basetball, the Alabama Devils were trounced by their Casari counterparts, 6:5. Well, at least they scored, that’s what I say. The Ambivalentir PWNers, the official team of the Ambivalentira political party were PWNed by the Krytenians, 2 to 4. Serves the commie bastards right, too, I say.

Now for the surprising news. Against all odds, the Kentucky Bastards have actually won a game – prevailing on the Milchaman competitors at 5:4. With me from the Ylompic is G. Ramsey, the Kentucky Bastards Coach from Hell! Well, you know what I meant.

The coach appears on screen, he is holding a digital camera and looking into it. He is dressed in what appears to be a cowboy outfit.

“Hello, Coach Ramsey, what do you have to say about your victory?”

“Well, we were a tad surprised ourselves, we were. But I think this also proves that it’s never foretold, and really, even with low odds, if you give a good effort, you can win. I would also like to thank the Cute Bunny Burger Corporation (http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=471405), the sponsor of our sports team, for our success. We would never have made it without them. “

“Thank you, Coach Ramsey. And now to the commercials!”

“But wait! I haven’t yet said hello to my Grandma! And my nephews! And Cousin Mike! I have never been on national television before!”

“Thank you, Coach Ramsey.”

Snip to commercials.

One can see a shooting range. Prone rifle shooters lie down, aiming at their targets, and shots are heard. One can see a close-up of a rifle barrel, fire erupting from the muzzle, and then a target with what appears to be an unusually tight group.

Ronald North appears on the screen, with the words Ronald North, Allanean National 3 position rifle champion 200?. He speaks, smiling at the viewer:

“Do you know what helps me get my groups that good? Well, training and exercise is part of it – but I would never have gotten there without my good friends at Allanean Arms Corporation.

The Allanean Arms Performance Center will take any Allanean Arms rifle, and fine-tune it for its user, making it even easier to use with accuracy – even Ronald North Accuracy.

I used to be a simple kid from an ordinary family. But I had a dream. And today, as I go off to the Ylompics, I remember who helped it come true. They will help you, too!"

The Allanean Arms logo appears on the screen, with the words:

Allanean Arms. Making your dreams come true.

Good evening, and welcome to our recap covering of the Tyrellia Ylompics! There’s been quite a lot happening in this first day of competition, and if you haven’t been able to watch the events unfold live, here’s a quick summary. The first medals have been decided, and Ariddia almost made it onto the first medal table of the Games. That was in the very first event of the day, as the Games started in style with cycling, and the women’s road race.

Ariddia’s Deirdre Khangal went up against twenty-four other competitors, for almost three hours of hard effort on the bike. After a fairly measured start, Khangal picked up the pace, and began to leave the slower competitors behind. As you can see in this replay, as the cyclists begin to stretch out, Khangal is almost in the lead group, and maintaining a steady effort. You can just see her overtaking Felicity Woolagong of Schiavonia, and that’s. . . yes, I think that’s Tameka Marie of the Kazoo Peoples. Khangal overtook her a few minutes later, and. . . We move ahead now, and she’s in the head of the pack, with five other athletes, the top six still in the running for gold. Lynn Harris of Bedistan is leading the pack and setting the pace at this point. Khangal is in fifth place, moving into fourth. . .

We skip ahead again, and Deirdre Khangal is now in third place, and gaining quickly on Sarah Rapid of Anastasiana. She’s in bronze-medal position, and, as we watch, she moves into second place. Fans along the sidelines and back home in Ariddia must have been getting really excited about now, as it seemed an Ariddian would be grabbing a medal in the very first event. She rounds a bend, pedalling fast, leaving Rapid behind. . . As you can see, even the head of the pack is stretched out now. But Aida Pasada of Chicanada is coming back strongly behind her. Khangal is still going strong, but perhaps she’s beginning to run out of energy just a little, after so much effort, and that first place is looking a long way away. . . While several athletes behind her are giving everything they’ve got to prevent her from getting that silver medal. . . She’s still in silver medal position. . . but. . . there, as you can see as we cut to the final images, it’s Mancuso and Pasada crossing the line to earn gold and silver, and coming up behind them is Harris for Bedistan, and Khangal is too far behind her now to deny her bronze. There. . . Lynn Harris takes bronze, and it’s a fourth place for Deirdre, almost a minute later. Two hours, fifty-two minutes, twenty-five seconds. A very impressive performance, as she leaves twenty-one of her competitors behind, but not quite enough to get onto that illustrious first podium.

These Games are over for Deirdre Khangal, and she’ll be going home without a medal, but she can be very proud indeed of her performance today. Hopefully she’ll have set an example to inspire her fellow Ariddian athletes to excel as she has, and we’ll be finding that out over the next few days.

And the rest of the day’s events. . . Swimming began today, in several fields. Ariddia is only competing in freestyle events, and we had Alan Heath and Brian Réveil going for the men. A look at that in just a moment, but first the men’s 100m backstroke semi-final, which, as you can see on the screen, was won by Alan Deveau of the Algal States, one tenth of a second ahead of Bedistan’s Im Beom-seon. They’ll both be going on to the final, along with six others.

In the men’s 200m freestyle, Ariddia’s Alan Heath impressively won his heat, finishing as the second fastest qualifier overall, with 1:45.11. Which put him in silver medal position, with a fair shot at the gold, and a lot for Ariddian supporters to get excited about. Compatriot Brian Réveil, unfortunately, did not advance from his heat, leaving only Heath to represent Ariddia in the semis.

A slow, unexpectedly clumsy start saw Heath struggle to regain lost ground in his semi-final, to no avail as he finished last, a huge disappointment after his earlier excellent performance. His time was four and a half seconds behind the slowest qualifier, Casari’s Jessie Brooking.

“These things happen,” he said later, obviously displeased with himself nonetheless. “I made a beginner’s mistake, and I paid for it. I know I could have made it to the final if I’d been concentrating right from the start. I could have won my semi. Still, the good thing about all this is, I saw in the heat what I’m able to achieve. That was a huge confidence-booster, and I think it’ll help me in other events. I’m just sorry I got everyone’s hopes up just to finish like this.”

In sailing, there were no Ariddians today, while in men’s football it was a BYE-day for Ariddia’s amateur team, who will be looking to emulate their better-known professional counterparts. But the best news of the day came in gymnastics.

In the qualifying of the women’s artistic gymnastics, Ariddian ladies Anaïs Reed, April Smithson, Aliw Set, Laure Mkrchyan, Hope Mathijsen and Sunny Mokhobo took to the gym with hope, determination and skill. Mkrchyan was awarded a superb score of 9.905 on the balance beam, just edging out team mate Aliw Set by one hundredth of a point, and both received cheering applaud from spectators. Better still, Sunny Mokhobo impressed the judges in the floor exercise, and was rewarded with a score of 9.944, causing a squeal of joy from the young Ariddian. Most impressive of all, however, was Johanna Yizel of Kelse, who delivered a dazzlingly perfect performance on the balance beam, and earned a well-deserved perfect score of 10.

The Ariddian girls nonetheless topped the qualifying stage overall, and were the only team to score above one hundred and fifty-six points, with a total of 156.375. The Kelsian ladies came second, with 155.847. Ariddia looks set and eager to claim gold, but with skilled competitors still very much in the running, anything could still happen.

Of Ariddia’s six female gymnasts, only April Smithson was left out of qualifying for the individual all around, while Anaïs Reed qualified as temporary sixth best overall. Which means five opportunities for individual medals, although the girls will have to work hard to beat the favourites. On the balance beam, Mkrchyan and Set are temporarily third and fourth, behind the amazing Kelsians Yizel and Ayala, and potentially their nation’s best hopes for individual medals in gymnastics. But it won’t be all Kelse versus Ariddia on the beam, as other athletes will also be pushing for a medal.

With Deirdre Khangal’s fourth place in cycling, Alan Heath’s excellent qualifying time in the pool, and Ariddia topping the team qualifiers in women’s gymnastics, it’s been an encouraging display of Ariddian talent for the first day of events. It’s also been a day in which Ariddia’s best came up just short of the world’s very best, revealing just how high the level of talent at these Games really is. The battle for medals is definitely on.

Algal States gets started at the Ylompics.

In the first day of competition at the Ylompics, the Algal States swim team got of to a good start by qualifying two swimmers for finals. In the men's 100m backstroke semifinal Alan Deveau was the top qualifier with a time of 56.11 seconds and in women's 100m Breaststroke Semifinal Jessica Foote qualified for the final in 6th spot. Thomas Thibault managed to make it to the semifinal in the 200m Freestyle but came up a little short in his bid to make the final coming in in 14th place.
The sailing team had a mixed day in which the mens' and womens' 470s' had tough opening races and found themselves at the bottom of the pack after two races. The womens' results were especially surprising but the experienced team of Lisa Cosman & Kyla Cornick just attributed it to a very tough field and opening day jitters, they vowed to put it behind them and focus on the rest of their races. In the men's finn class both Donald Macintosh and Malcolm Masters had respectable times and both garnered a 4th place finish in the 2nd and 1st races respectively leaving them both firmly in the middle of the pack.
In team sports, the mens' football and water polo teams started play and both lost very close matches. In football the national development team lost 3-2 to the Macabees squad in a match were the victorious team controlled the first half and scored 3 quick goals, Algal States came on strong in the last 10 minutes and scored 2 goals but it was too little too late as they lost their opening game. In the water polo match Algal States took on Bedistan in their first game and in a close match where both teams constantly swapped the lead it was Bedistan on top by a score of 12-10 at the end.
The next day of competition will find the swimming team going for the medals and the rowing team will start its hunt for the finals, with their best chances in the single skulls and the eights they'll find out if training in heavy dorys was a good decision. Also team competition will continue.

The Rejistanian male soccer team consisted of some of the players, who are not known well internationally, the ASR did insist that some of the star players must not play there due to the 'risk of injury in a less glorious tournament" So some Rejistanis who didn't made it into the national team had a chance to play internationally. The starting 11 is:
GK: Hanju Sinimene, Sike Veran
DF: Xuan Itera, Na~ovi Sekhika
DF: Ka~nsu Hana~o, Karela FC, Milchama
DF: Ita I Lah*, Riandu Kimi
DF: Manatha~e Hihtaka~o, Matix Veran
MF: Vaka Iuliana, Soru Simu
MF: Syku Taki~l*, Na~ovi Sekhika
MF: Xura Kameril, Hetkali Junis
MF: Teke Idaril, Jinhes Junis
FW: Kansu I Jen*, Mikedi Omeh
FW: Lyku Imdila*, Sen-La-Sa~o Relekhati

The Ylompic Orange-Blues played their first match against hosts Casari. It was seen that coach Teke Syku was a friend of attacking soccer. Not only was the lineup extremely takilan, the team played in a way, the temple of Karela highly discouraged. Casari had no good start and were behind 0:2 after ten minutes. After that they emphasized on damage reduction. That did not help much: The Orange-Blues won with a sensational 7:1. Lyku Imdila scored his first hat trick in an international competition, also I Jen'he impressed: He was able to score twice against the hosts. Commentators siad after this match that Takil found its way back into Rejistanian soccer.

---

The Handball team was back in international competition, after a long time where competitions did only happen on local level. It is still popular and so many rejistanians watches the match between the Lasane and the Milchamans. The team was eager to show their skill internationally. Despite all current competitors did not see the glorious competitions from the first republican era, they have heard of the tradition and watched some of the matches on TV. The TAHAI! player Ilija Likhat was the first one to score in an international handball competition in the time of the second republic. However Milchama had the better start and they were soon leading 4:1. During the course of the match, the Lasane however was able to change the trailing into a lead and at half time, they were leading 14:11. Milchama however clearly worsened in the second half. If luck was taxed, they'd get a 6 digit refund. The Lasane won by a clear 30:18.

---

The Rejistanian Softball Team had a mediocre performance in offense and a karelan defense which allowed them to win the match against Collonie 2ja0. Coach Leta "Xtalin" I Ly was not satisfied with the performance at all and said tthe team needs to 'improve by 100% or we are out sooner than you think'.

---

In the rejistanian part of the Ylompic village, the natural rejistanian chaos prevails. After his close elimination, Ila Kansu somehow used his 'Vitamin C' (connections) to get a bottle of Abysmal hooch. Apparently he thought it was a good idea to do frustration drinking with a group of Allaneans. His motivation seemed to be getting away from the eyes and the talk of the rejistanian teammates. They were drinking and later singing together. Not knowing the language of the others seemed to be not much of an issue. When he woke up the next day, he had a headache. After eventually risking to open his eyes long enough to see something, he saw that he had no idea where he was, but he was in bed with... No, this is not happening. At least the shock woke him up. He quickly searched his clothes, and left, trying not to wake up the man, he could not remember the name of. Hopefully he could organize a sober pill somewhere.

Frederick Key, Jr. woke up slowly. He did not remember much from yesterday – except that his team, the Kentucky Bastard, had won some form of game… a softball game. That. Then there was drink – absinthe, and vodka, and beer, and some terrible hooch from Abysmalistan, and extasy, and Dual-Purpose Aphrodisiac – but were the hell was he, now?

He realized, of course, that he had spent the night with some dude or another. That – and the name of the dude – was not really relevant at the moment. Only one thing mattered – finding out were he was, so he could get back to his team’s Ylompic village. Now, how do I find out where the f*ck I am?

His head hurt, too.

“Right then,” cycling coach Roger Merx said, pacing through the briefing room, less than an hour before the start of the men’s road race. “Who to watch?”

“Harris and Lunny, the Anastasians,” Mulder said.

“Check, who else?”

“Lance ‘check out my pretty’ Stronglegs,” Felton De Perte snickered.

“Make fun all you want, just keep an eye on him. Who else?”

“Pantani, Samuel. Krytenia.” Walter Kippel was all about quiet concentration, as usual.

“Check. Who else?”

Nobody said anything.

“Who else, dammit? Mulder?”

“Manou…sa…something… Oh hell coach, that Bedistani dude. We’ll know him when we see him.”

“You better. Good. So what do you do when one of them attacks? Walter?”

“First 5 laps, not a damn thing. After that, either me or Roger respond. Felton sits back and enjoys the ride until the final lap, no matter what happens.”

“Bingo. You got that, Fel…? Felton, what the fuck?! Are you out of your friggin’ mind, smoking that stuff so close to the race?” He snatched the joint from De Perte’s lips, dropped it on the floor, stamped on it. The cyclist looked at it regretfully.

“Oh come on, coach. You know I ride better when slightly baked. Besides, like you said, all I have to do is sit back until the end. It makes time go by faster.”

“We’re not in Spruitland here, dammit! The rules about drugs are much stricter here!”

“Heh, it’s not exactly a performance enhancing drug, now is it?”

“I’ll have none of it! You can get baked tonight all you want, but not right before a race, capiche? Now get moving, I wanna see you outside in ten!”

He picked up the trampled joint from the floor, stuffed it into his pocket, and left the room with a semi-firm door slam.

De Perte snickered. “Come on, Mulder, cough it up.”

“What?”

“Come on, I know you’re packing. And you lit up this morning, so you don’t need it. Gimme.”

“No way man, that’s for after the race. I can’t wait until I’m back in the hotel, I need to –“

“Then I’ll get you one right after the race, you cheap skate. Once I’m in, I’ll have plenty of time to scrounge some off one of the mechanics and roll one before you arrive. Now come on, or I’ll pop your tires ten seconds before the start.”

Mulder sighed, fished a big joint out of one of his shirt pockets, and handed it over. Walter Kippel, whose face hadn’t moved a muscle during the entire exchange, left the room without a word. Idiots, he thought. If Spruitland wanted a second medal today, he’d have to do it himself.

"Good morning from Tyrellia, Casari, as SCB:Sports brings you the Ylompics Games, live. I'm Saianne DeJardin and for the next twenty-three days we'll be bringing you all the action from the inaugural Ylompic Games, particularly as Starblaydia strive for glory across the Nemyan Straight."

"After such a stunning opening ceremony last night in the Tyrellian Ylompic Stadium, our focus today will be switching to the Ylompic Aquatic Center for some of the Men's swimming, Tyrellia Hill Stadium for Starblaydia versus Bedistan in the Men's Football and also Lesari Fieldhouse for the Gymnastics qualifiers. Firstly, however, we'll be making our first of what will be many trips to the Weili Rowing and Yacht club, where later on in the Games we'll be checking out the rowing, but today it's Charlie Fanostis in the Men's Finn Class, sailing for Starblaydia in the first of eleven races..."

*** one hour's worth of sailing round and round later ***

"Just look at this lead," the commentator yells, "he's two seconds ahead of the Casaran, who's fighting with the Spruitlander for second position, but Charlie Fanostis of Starblaydia is keeping his lead from the other two heavy dinghies in this first race of the Finn class, ten more to go. But its Fanostis of Starblaydia who takes the first race, putting him on top of the leaderboard!"

*** back to the studio, thank the Lord ***

"Unfortunately Charlie Fanostis couldn't maintain his good form in the second race as he came in ninth, mostly due to some excellent blocking by one of the Casaran boats. Whether they're working as a team against solitary challengers is yet to be seen, but overall Charlie lies in fourth place after two of the eleven Finn races."

"...and that's all from the Ylompic Aquatic Center in Tyrellia. The final score again: Bedistan twelve, Algal States ten. We'll now go back to our main studio for the full Day Two recap."

Special Ylompic theme music plays. A logo with the text "Tyrellia 2094" beneath it slowly appears in the middle of the screen.

"Well, we may only be two days in, but the action here in Tyrellia is already heating up. And it started out with a bang, with medals being handed out in the very first event of the Games - the women's road race. Perhaps the cyclist everyone had their eyes on was Spruitland's Valerie Platt, a favorite for the gold medal. At the start of the race it looked like she could well deliver, taking an early and relatively large lead, but it didn't take too long for her to apparently run out of steam, and she actually ended up finishing quite a long way back in the pack. Nevertheless, Spruitland still got the gold medal through Elke Mancuso, though Chicanada's Aida Pasada held on to the very end, finishing less than seven seconds behind Mancuso for the silver. And it was Bedistan's own Lynn Harris coming in a comfortable third place, taking the bronze by nearly a minute over Ariddia's Deirdre Khangal. A Day Two medal for Team Bedistan, not something a lot of people were expecting.

"Then came the aquatic events - in the men's 100-meter backstroke, only one of Bedistan's three competitors made it through the final, but he did so in great fashion, as Im Beom-seon finished just a tenth of a second behind the Algal States' Alan Deveau for a second place finish in the semifinals, though arguably it's Anastasiania with the best chance for a medal here, as the only nation with two swimmers in that final, Ashley Byerley and Seymour Conrad.

"In the men's 200-meter freestyle, another strong showing for the Bedistanis. Two out of three made it through to the semifinals, with Daniel Prewitt just missing out by under three-tenths of a second in 18th place. And I'd have to say that we're the medal favorites here, especially with Lawrence Jenkins pulling off the absolute fastest time in the semifinals and Gang Il-bi finishing a very respectable fourth.

"Meanwhile in the women's 100-meter breaststroke, Bedistan is the only nation with two representatives in the final, as both Kyung-soon Hae-ho and Jasmin Alley go through; but watch out for Milchama's Abby Brickley, who set the pace in the semis. And finally in the men's 200-meter butterfly, Bedistan and the Kazoo Peoples are medal favorites here, each with two in the final. For us it's Spúros Khraéstos and Drew Smalls. All in all a very good day for Bedistani swimmers.

"Then came the gymnastics competition. Bedistan has no competitors here, but it was Ariddia who dominated in the women's artistic qualifying team competition. In sailing, the Casaran team of Easley and Sisco lead the men's 470 followed by teams from Kelse and Anastasiania, while that last nation's Towse and Seddon are dominating the women's version. In the men's finn, it's looking good for the Spruits, as their Aaron Bakboordt leads the pack.

"On to more events we're actually in - due to scheduling, our baseball team had a bye today. In our group, Casari got a closely-fought 6-5 win over Allanea, while it was all defense in the Anastasiania-Kazoo match, the Kazoos coming out on top 3-0. Perhaps our greatest achievement of the day was in men's football, though. Our defending World Cup 26-winning squad is in Tyrellia, split into men's and women's teams, of course, and the men edged out a spectacular 1-0 victory over Starblaydia, with Billy English scoring the winning goal, David Bedford's fingertip save not quite providing enough of a deflection as the ball goes in off the post.

"In women's volleyball, things got off to a very bad start as Collonie hammered the Bedistani team 25-3 in the first set. It didn't take long for our girls to get it together though, and they hardly gave their opponents a sniff in the next two, winning both 25-2. The fourth set, though, was surely the best of them all, including several lead changes early on before Bedistan finally secured the win 25-20 and therefore won the series 3-1. And then of course was our 12-10 victory over Algal States in water polo, which you just saw.

"So at the end of the day, three medals have been awarded, all in the women's road race: a gold for Spruitland, silver for Chicanada, and Bedistan already on the board with a bronze and surely much more to come. We'll continue to bring you full 24-hour-a-day coverage here on BSTV."

Starblaydis Felled by English
Pool B looks incredibly tough

Just because it's not a World Cup doesn't mean it's not the same old style for football reports.

Starblaydia haven't got a great history at Oly/Ylompic tournaments. A team containing such stars as Simeone Di Bradini, no less, lost to Sportland (no, not Spruitland, Sportland) on penalties after a 1-1 draw in their opening match, and today's Starblaydia Men's Football side haven't done much better.

Starblaydia's captain for this tournament, Georges Blanc, had no defence against his Floral FC team-mate Billy English with less than ten minutes to go, as English skinned him for the ball and placed a shot towards the far corner that Bedford could only agonisingly get his fingertips to, but it was little use as the ball bounced off the inside of the post and straight in the net.

A Men's team bereft of Tolkacheva, Garcia and Matranga - commandeered for the Women's side - had little attacking thrust despite a classic 'little and large' combination with Durm Rage and Johan Keifner rampaging around to try and get Von Erich in to score. With - oh god - Rejistania next, Starblaydia will be hoping for some actual points so they can progress to one of the most hotly-contested Gold Medals in the whole Games.

Starblaydia's Starting XI:
1
Bedford

2 5 6 3
Drazarim Valdez Kouvas Rakkinen

*4*
Blanc
7 11
Noble Chavez
8
Rage

9 10
Keifner Von Erich


Final Score from Tyrellia Hill Stadium:
Starblaydia Men's 0 - 1 Bedistan Men's
(None) - (English 82)

Day/2 Cutoff!

"Sports news now, and all the details from Tyrellia with Jamie Balantero."

"Well, it's been an awful day for the Krytenians in the first day of the Ylompics, but the first gold has been decided in the Women's cycling. Spruitland's Elke Mancuso won the gold medal, streaking away from the pack and beating the silver medallist by a whole six seconds. Lisa Elvery trailed in eleventh.

"It wasn't much better in the pool; only James Osmond made it past the heats, and youngest brother Alec was slowest of all in the first round. Fourth place in his semi-final wasn't enough though, and there will be no Krytenians in the 200m freestyle final.

"A bright forecast, though, in the team sports. The one-day cricket side walloped Milchama by eighty-nine runs in the pool opener, and the United Krytenian Universties team beat Allanea four-two in the opening of the Men's Football.

"Hopes for tomorrow is high though; the Krytenians are almost unmatchable on the two-thousand metre rowing course; we're looking forward to some big duels with the Men (and Women) In Mauve once again."

"Thank you James. And now, Scott Gregorowicz with the weather."

First medal for Ropa-Topian Sports Alliance
Sepers nearly repeats yesterday's record; not enough for gold

Tyrellia - Two days into the Ylompics, the Ropa-Topian team receives its first medal. In the finals of the men's 200m freestyle swimming, Lars Sepers nearly repeated yesterday's time of 1:44.15, a new national record. While it was enough to be the fastest qualifier overall (nearly a full second faster than Ariddia's Alan Heath; who failed to qualify for the finals), today's 1:44.16 was only enough for a second place, earning Sepers a still well-earned silver medal. Dorsey Anijs of Spruitland took the gold medal with a time of 1:44.09.

GOLD for Anijs!

Second day of the competitions, second gold medal for Spruitland – we’ll settle for that! Oddly enough, the medal did not come in men’s cycling, as many people expected, but in swimming. Who’d have thunk, huh? So erm, while we normally start off with a report on the cycling, and then do the “other sports” at the bottom, we’re gonna have to change that already, today.

So, right, swimming it is. There were four finals to be decided today, with two Spruitlanders in them. Of the two, breaststroke swimmer Marleen Kuykenberg was the one with the best chance at a medal, clocking the 4th best time in the 100 meter semi finals and giving every impression that she still had something in reserve. And she did. Marleen swam a strong final, breaking the national record by more than half a second, but she came up just short of the podium.

Dorsey Anijs, however, in the 200 meter Freestyle, was the big surprise of the day. With the 6th time of the semi finals, he was not considered a major contender for the medals, but he, too, had apparently kept something in reserve. He clocked a smashing 1:44:09 – a new Ylompic record – in a thrillingly close sprint against Ropo-Topian Lars Sepers that had both swimmers looking at the scoreboard to see who won.

“I’m as surprised as everyone else,” Anijs said. “To be honest, I really had to go to the bathroom urgently, so I just swam as fast as I could. Worked out well, maybe I’ll try that again in the 100 meter race.”

There was more swimming, with several heats and semis, and seven Spruitland participants in that. A quick summary: five of them didn’t make it past the semi-finals. The two that did and will be swimming for a medal tomorrow were Dalia Hammel in the 200 meter Butterfly and Gina Korintjes in the 200 meter Freestyle.

Right, cycling, then

The Men’s Road Race did not go very well for De Perte, Mulder and Kippel, Spruitland’s three cyclists, as they found themselves seriously outdone by an unknown Starblaydi rider named Juan Svoboda.

“Never heard of him,” Walter Kippel said after the race. “So when he took off on his own, everybody went ‘pffft, let him go, he’s crap, we’ll catch him.’ Never saw him again until the finish though.”

Roger Mulder survived the longest in the chase, finishing in a reasonable sixth place, but the Spruitland team can not be happy with the outcome of the race. They are hoping for a strong time trial to make up for today’s disappointment.

Nevertheless, after two days of Ylompic competition, Spruitland stays in the lead in the medal standings with two gold medals. Tyrellian officials, however, have, for some odd reason, put Bedistan at the top of that table, even though they haven’t won any gold medal yet. We suspect an inferior spreadsheat (probably an Open Source one) to be the cause for that error.

Non-swimming or -cycling summary

Plenty more Spruitlanders in pre-finals action. Rolf Kaemerjas did some jumping around and flip flopping in the men’s Gymnastics. While we couldn’t be bothered to watch it, we were told he qualified for the Men’s All-Around, the Floor Exercise, the Vault and the Pommel Horse. Hurray for Rolf. We’ll continue to give one-line summaries of his progress.

What else? Right, rowing. Don’t worry, we’ll be brief, we know you don’t care. In the Single Skulls, Arnold Braenen pretty much sucked in the men’s heats, but Deborah Nestman qualified convincingly for the semi finals. Braenen did better in the men’s Light Double Skulls, however, together with Wesley Den Droge, snatching the final spot for the finals.

Alright, moving right along to… sailing, hmmm. Not terribly exciting either, but we had someone in the lead there yesterday. No more, though. Aaron Backboordt had a crappy Race 3 in the Finn class. A decent Race 4 kept him in second place, howver. For now, at least. Nonkula and Planck are plodding right along in the Women’s 470 as well, staying in the middle of the pack. Again, for now.

Nothing but good news in the team sports, however. The Spruitland Wabbit-Chicks did not miss their international debut, narrowly beating a heavily world cup-experienced Bedistani side, 1-0, with a goal from midfielder Zoë Van Moor. And the Water Bunnies – the women’s water polo team – opened their “pool play” with a win as well, beating the Kazoo team by 10 goals to 7.

More of the same tomorrow, with rowing, sailing, and team sport pool play continuing, but our focus will, again, be on the swimming pool – for our two women competing for a medal – and, of course, on the women’s cycling time trial, where Valerie Platt will hopefully be able to make up for her poor performance in the road race.

Until then, let’s finish with the following words, to be whispered over and over in every Spruitland bed tonight: Two Gold Medals, Baby!

Humiliating defeat!
Klungelaer: "I'd rather forget today ever happened."

Tyrellia - The women's football team's first match at the Ylompics resulted in a humiliating defeat of 1-3 against Chicanada. At least Ariddia's team managed to show the world that Uhuhland does know how to play football, as they won from Rejistania with 2-0.

"Football is supposed to be our national sport," a disappointed Minister of Sports from Uhuh-Ropa, Ferdinand Klungelaer, and current chairman of the Ropa-Topian Sports Alliance said at a press conference after the match. "If it wasn't for Lars [editor: Sepers], I'd rather forget today ever happened."

When a reporter asked Minister Klungelaer if swimming should perhaps become our new national sport, the press conference was ended when a furious Klungelaer just walked out of the room.

Better news from the swimming front: Ireen Arcadia and Jessica Rubik qualified themselves for the finals. Phoebe Buitendam did not qualify though, but even so, Uhuhland will be represented well at the finals, as both swimmers -Carol Gale and Noémi Levi- from Ariddia qualified as well. Sanadrianese Sabrina Vannucci failed to qualify.

Day 3 Ylompic Update
Saint-Monica Nautique

Tyrellia, CAS - With Day 3 of the Tyrellian Ylompics over, the results are in and once again, Kelse has had mixed results. Today's update starts with the Men's Artistic Gymnastics Qualification, where Kelse scored a dismal 155.603 overral. They made the cut-off to qualify into the team event, however, they were last and so a medal is not likely as they must attempt to qualify against powerhouses Ariddia, Chicanada, Andossa Si Mirtin Vega, Rejistania, and Milchama. The individual qualifications are as followed...

All-Around: James Nikel, Jacques Metende, Joseph Detreno, Santo Doulte, and Riyo Nalik.
Floor Exercize: Riyo Nalik, Santo Doulte, and Jacques Metende
High Bar: Santo Doulte
Parallel Bars: Jacques Metende, Riyo Nalik, and Joseph Detreno
Vault: James Nikel
Pommel Horse: James Nikel and Julio Del Santorini
Rings: Jacques Metende and Santo Dolte

The next event takes us out to the bay, where one of Kelse's most competitive sport is to take place - Sailing. In the Mens 470, team Nortel/Sonero scored 2nd with a time of 40:04.67 in the 3rd Race, while also putting forth a showing of 5th place in the 4th Race, with a time of 40:32.85. Overall, they now rank 2nd, behind Easley/Sisco of the home nation, Casari. The Women's 470 had worse results, with twins Kina and Kora Detorro placing 7th and 2nd with times of 40:29.88 and 40:04.26, giving them 5th overall. In the Men's Finn Jose Sonero placed 4th with a time of 1:04:39.57 while Ryan Nortel struggled with a 6th place finish at 1:04:43.51. In the 4th race, Nortel placed 7th with a time of 1:04:33.01 as Jose Sonero made critical mistakes to place him at 13th with a time of 1:04:58.52, placing him at 8th overall while Nortel held a 3rd place overall. At the Laser Race, Treo Centino placed 2nd with a 1:04:09.26 finish while Andrew Skorello placed 7th with a time of 1:04:34.46. In the 2nd Laser Race, Centino placed 7th while Skorello placed 9th. Overall, Centino is at 3rd tied with Yanike Pauluoss of Andossa Se Mirtin Vega while Skorello sits at 9th.

In Men's Volleyball, Kelse defeated Collonie in three games, 25-10, 25-13, and 25-23. The win puts them at 2nd place in Pool A, behind Starblaydia. In Men's Beach Volleyball, Kelse's lone team defeated Starblaydia in two quick games, 21-12 and 21-3. This win puts them at the top of Pool B. In Women's Water Polo, the Ladies couldn't hold their own as they lost 7-5 against Algal States. With that, this Ylompic Update is over, and Kelse has yet to win a medal, but it'll happen, and until next time, go Kelse!

Current Medal Standings
Nation G S B T
Bedistan 0 2 2 4
The Kazoo Peoples 1 2 0 3
Spruitland 2 0 0 2
Starblaydia 1 0 1 2
Casari 1 0 0 1
Milchama 1 0 0 1
Chicanada 0 1 0 1
Uhuh-Topia 0 1 0 1
Algal States 0 0 1 1
Rejistania 0 0 1 1

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Sports Section

Milchama nab first gold on good second day

Well luckily for us the first day seems to be a blip on the radar and the second day has shown the good side of Milchama athletics. Timothy Gehrk won the 100 M backstroke final to give Milchama their first gold medal and first medal of this Ylompics. This is what Gehrk said, "This is great. Milchama's first ever gold medal in the Ylompics, really our first medal in any sport. This is incredible I will be known to generations of Milchamians as one of the greatest athletes in our history. I can barely believe it, this is unbelievable."
Now for the event by event report:

Swimming: In the other swimming finals the other Milchamians could not repeat the success of Timmy Gehrk. Thomas Delino finished 5th in the Men's 100M butterfly and Abby Brickley came in 7th in the women's 100M breaststoke final. In the qualifiers Jose Berglund came in first in the Men's 100M breaststroke semifinal. Both Corrine Keown and Gabriel Stangow went in the final for the women's backstroke semifinal. Cameron Illine qualified for the final and Adrienne Tanton was the best of the non-quals in the women's butterfly semifinal. Kim Abelar qualified for the semis in the 200m freestyle and was the best of the worst in the semifinals.

Gymnastics: It was the men's turn today and they did a fantastic job qualifying for the team finals in 5th place. Indiviually the Milchamians did great as 3 men, Sam Burch, Jimmy Dubois and Edward Felton, qualified for the all around finals. All 3 of those men plus Wayne Reardon qualified for the high bar finals. Both Sam Burch and Wayne Reardon qualified for the vault finals. Finally, Wayne Reardon and Ed Felton qualified on the pommel horse.

Team Sports: In basketball the Milchamians barely edged out the Starblaydis 77-76 with a last second shot by Jonathan Sheyer to win the game for the Giant Warriors. In women's basketball the Lady Giants had the bye. Then in women's football the Lady Warriors beat Becquerelia with two goals from Karina Johnson of the Great Generals. The win put the Lady Warriors in second place in their pool. In volleyball we got our first victory. The Fighters started extremely poorly losing the first set 25-3. Luckily that was just an anamoly as the Fighters won the next three sets for a 1-0 record. This was over Bedistan. The Lady War Ships also beat the Bedistanis 15-5 in Water polo. Finally the women cricketers lost by 8 wickets whatever that means against Schiavonia and the men lost in rugby to Krytenia no suprises.

Now onto a new feature the Collonie report:
Collonie is one of the most unique nations in this competition because they only have two names for their athletes, Frankie Hanan for men and Maurine Fulvia for women. This makes them a marked nation. In rowing they qualified 3 people to finals. Two men and women. In sailing they did not do so well as all of their athletes are near the bottom in all of the events. In team sports was not better for the Flying Eagles. They got crushed in basketball by Schiavonia, lost in women's basketball to Allanea, got killed 7-1 in women's football, got swept by Kelse in volleyball, the Collonie 1 team lost to Bedistan's two in men's beach volleyball. The Collonie 2 team did pick up a victory over Krytenia's 1 team. Then the Collonians got crushed 21-1 in women's water polo, they also lost in women's cricket to Casari and finally lost to Starblaydia in rugby. Not a good day for the Flying Eagles.

There was a printing error yesterday, and scores were not published yesterday. In this double-length edition of The Kazoo City Courier, we recap days one and two of athletic competition...

DAY 1

200m Men's Butterfly Semifinal

The Kazoos had the fourth- (Reg Alley) and eighth-place (George Thomas) finishers overall, and qualified for the finals.

"They have a 1 in 4 chance of winning the gold, and a 3 in 4 chance of winning a medal," said local crazy person Donald McRonald. We don't know if that's right, but is sounds good...

Ronald Link placed 15th.

Alexandre Carpathi MAC 2:07.01 Q
Thomas Delino MIL 2:07.35 Q
Spúros Khraéstos BDS 2:07.49 Q
Reg Alley TKP 2:07.65 Q
Drew Smalls BDS 2:08.22 Q
Paul Miller ANA 2:11.05 Q
Randy Richter STB 2:11.30 Q
George Thomas TKP 2:11.45 Q
...
Ronald Link TKP 2:14.25
3 others

Women's 100m Breaststroke Semifinal

The Kazoo Peoples' only competitor in the Women's 100m Breaststroke (Roslyn Mutter) failed to qualify, placing in 15th.

Abby Brickley MIL 1:06.42 Q
Nana I Ra~e REJ 1:06.99 Q
Kyung-soon Hae-ho BDS 1:07.11 Q
Marleen Kuykenberg SPR 1:07.69 Q
Tamara Gower ANA 1:08.15 Q
Jessica Foote ALG 1:08.82 Q
Nita Eckhart CAS 1:08.96 Q
Jasmin Alley BDS 1:09.01 Q
...
Roslyn Mutter TKP 1:10.13
2 others

Men's 200m Freestyle Heats

The Kazoo Peoples 2 of the 3 competitors in the Men's 200m Freestyle qualified for the Semifinals later that day. They earned fourth- (Max McCauley) and sixteenth-place (Rosalino Lahaye). Twenty-fifth place finisher (Gary Botello) did not qualify.

Lars Sepers UUT 1:44.15 Q
Alan Heath ARI 1:45.11 Q
Gang Il-bi BDS 1:45.62 Q
Max McCauley TKP 1:45.68 Q
Dorsey Anjis SPR 1:46.16 Q
Jessie Brooking CAS 1:46.17 Q
Lawrence Jenkins BDS 1:46.38 Q
Thomas Thibault ALG 1:46.66 Q
Tyrone Hauntman CAS 1:46.67 Q
Philip Thrift STB 1:46.76 Q
Syku Soiha REJ 1:46.99 Q
Roger Guerin STB 1:47.60 Q
Tintoreo Juven MAC 1:48.47 Q
James Osmond KRY 1:49.10 Q
Mitch Gadsby ANA 1:49.57 Q
Rosalino Lahaye TKP 1:49.61 Q
...
Gary Botello TKP 1:51.23
5 others

Men's 200m Freestyle Semifinals

In this set of semifinals, Rosalino Lahaye and Max McCauley, came in eleventh- and twelveth-place, respectively.


Lawrence Jenkins BDS 1:44.97 Q
Mitch Gadsby ANA 1:45.02 Q
Tyrone Hauntman CAS 1:45.59 Q
Gang Il-bi BDS 1:46.90 Q
Lars Sepers UUT 1:47.25 Q
Dorsey Anjis SPR 1:47.67 Q
Roger Guerin STB 1:48.17 Q
Jessie Brooking CAS 1:48.65 Q
...
Rosalino Lahaye TKP 1:50.94
Max McCauley TKP 1:51.04
4 others

Men's 100m Backstroke Semifinal

No one advanced from The Kazoo Peoples in the 100m Backstroke Semifinals.

"Well, the backstroke has never been The Kazoo Peoples' best event," says swimming scportscaster and analyst Mike Phelps.

That was made apparent, as Patrick Crist finished last out of the field of 21. But we did have some hope, as Regis O'Hara snuck into the qualifying group of eight, with a time of 58.22. And Danilo Seymour was in 15th with a time of 1:00.45


Alan Deveau ALG 0:56.11 Q
Im Beom-seon BDS 0:56.21 Q
Timothy Gehrk MIL 0:56.47 Q
Syku Soiha REJ 0:57.75 Q
Ashley Byerley ANA 0:58.04 Q
Andrew Goodwin STB 0:58.07 Q
Seymour Conrad ANA 0:58.11 Q
Regis O'Hara TKP 0:58.22 Q
...
Danilo Seymour TKP 1:00.45
...
Patrick Crist TKP 1:01.03

Women's Road Race

In the Women's Road Race, we didn't win a medal. 'nuff said. We did come in 13th, though, out of 25 competitors.

GOLD 2:50:27.30 Elke Mancuso SPR
SILVER 2:50:33.92 Aida Pasada CHI
BRONZE 2:51:26.20 Lynn Harris BDS
2:52:25.18 Deirdre Khangal ARI
2:52:41.35 Sarah Rapid ANA
2:53:35.28 Camille Suhr CAS
2:53:35.79 Felicity Woolagong SCH
2:54:00.50 Xeahieil Maohi REJ
2:54:04.37 Yvonne Smith SCH
2:54:44.17 Virgie Houle BDS
2:55:27.83 Lisa Elvery KRY
2:55:56.81 Eleni Baggéles BDS
2:56:09.65 Tameka Marie TKP
12 others

Team Sports

Baseball

Anastasiania 0, The Kazoo Peoples 3

Line Score:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 R H E
ANA 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 4 1
TKP 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 X 3 9 0

Summary:

A pitcher's duel, but Anastasiania came out shaky, allowing three runs on seven hits in the first two innings, but only allowed two for the rest of the game. The Kazoos cruised to a four-hit shutout, with their starting pitcher having a no-hitter through six innings, ruined by an outfield single in the seventh.

Scoring Summary:
BOTTOM FIRST: Lincoln struck out. Washington singled to left. Jefferson singled to right, Washington to third. Wilson bunted, an infield hit, Jefferson to second. Roosevelt had a fielder's choice, Washington scored, Jefferson to third, Wilson out at second. Taft popped up to pitcher. 1 run, 3 hits, 0 errors. 1-0 Kazoos.
BOTTOM SECOND: Kennedy singled to center. Adams grounded into double play, Kennedy out at second. Bush doubled to left. Lincoln homered to left-center, Bush scored. Jefferson reached first on error. Wilson singled to right, Jefferson to third. Roosevelt fouled out. 2 runs, 4 hits, 1 error.

Pool B W L
Casari 1 0
The Kazoo Peoples 1 0
Bedistan 0 0
Allanea 0 1
Anastasiania 0 1

Kazoos lose to Liverpool England in Football

Eh, did you expect something else? We lost 3-2, despite having our World Cup team fly into Casari inbetween their World Cup 27 qualifying matches.

Lampshade scored one goal at minute 42, Chadd Johnson the other at minute 61.

Pool D Pts W T L GF GA
Becquerelia 3 1 0 0 2 1
Liverpool England 3 1 0 0 3 2
Uhuh-Topia 0 0 0 0 0 0
The Kazoo Peoples 0 0 0 1 2 3
Anastasiania 0 0 0 1 1 2

Handball, Men's

Pool B W L
The Kazoo Peoples 1 0
Casari 1 0
Collonie 0 0
Andossa Si Mirtin Vega 0 1
Kelse 0 1

Kazoos win 26-11 over Kelse.

Many tricky, planned, and practiced manouvres allowed the Kazoos to coast to an easy win.

Water Polo, Men's

Pool A W L
Kelse 1 0
Bedistan 1 0
Collonie 0 0
The Kazoo Peoples 0 1
Algal States 0 1

While we won against Kelse in Handball, we faltered in a tough, physical match of water polo, dropping the match 15-8.

Day 2

Men's Backstroke Final

Unlucky 13 Prevails

.13

"13 has always been my unlikely number, and now I have proof," said Silver Medallist Regis O'Hara.

O'Hara lost by thirteen hundreths of a second to eventual gold medallist Timothy Gehrk of Milchama.

"I'm still happy of the medal."

Timothy Gehrk MIL 54.12 GOLD
Regis O'Hara TKP 54.25 SILVER
Syku Soiha REJ 54.37 BRONZE

Men's 200m Butterfly
Reg Alley Golden

The Kazoo Peoples picked up their first gold of the Ylompics, as Reg Alley's time of 2:07.09 outpaced Drew Smalls of Bedistan. Randy Richter of Starblaydia earned bronze by a margin of .51 seconds over George Thomas, who was the second qualified person in the event.

Reg Alley TKP 2:07.09 GOLD
Drew Smalls BDS 2:07.25 SILVER
Randy Richter STB 2:07.26 BRONZE
George Thomas TKP 2:07.77

Men's Road Race

Lance Stronglegs falters, but we still earn a medal!

Juan Svoboda STB 4:41:10.43 GOLD
Samuel Baldwin TKP 4:44:53.62 SILVER
Sesh Shawe ARI 4:45:16.62 BRONZE
...
Tyler Lovell TKP 4:54:37.40 (15th)
...
Lance Stronglegs TKP 4:57:52.89 (18th)
10 others

World-Class athlete Lance Stronglegs faltered in the event that he has won at previous national and continental events for the past 6 years.

"Yeah, I'm disappointed that I didn't win a medal, and that I was last of our countrymen, but at least one of my great buddies Sam Baldwin won the silver."

Men's 100m Breaststroke

Jose Berglund MIL 0:59.30 Q
Randy Richter STB 0:59.36 Q
Stuart Stamper TKP 0:59.39 Q
Jordiö Angulo BDS 0:59.51 Q
David Smith ALG 0:59.51 Q
Ila Kansu REJ 0:59.65 Q
Mathew Hauer CAS 0:59.71 Q
Kelly Guillotte CAS 0:59.74 Q
...
Bryant Schaffer TKP 1:00.36 (19th)
Charlie Muller TKP 1:00.37 (20th)
Lumperópolos Mpréska BDS 1:00.39

In the Men's Breaststroke, though one athlete did exceptionally well (Stamper placed third), the other two in the event did exceptionally crappy (Schaffer and Muller placed in 19th and 20th, respectively). We will see what tomorrow has in store.

Women's 100m Backstroke Semifinal

Biddy Lytle BDS 0:59.60 Q
Syku Kansu REJ 0:59.61 Q
Corrine Keown MIL 0:59.63 Q
Gabriel Stangow MIL 0:59.64 Q
Kansu Syku REJ 0:59.64 Q
Alejandra Paoletti TKP 0:59.81 Q
Rae Athens CAS 1:00.14 Q
Díana Zarb MAC 1:00.19 Q

Alejandra Paoletti advanced by placing sixth in the Semifinal heat.

Women's 200m Butterfly Semifinal

Yong Gwon-hye BDS 2:05.62 Q
Carmon Illes MIL 2:05.69 Q
Jessica Foote ALG 2:05.81 Q
Dona Heinecke TKP 2:06.15 Q
Dalia Hammel SPR 2:06.20 Q
Nora Falk ANA 2:06.36 Q
Anna Utterström ANA 2:06.52 Q
Ltara Jen REJ 2:06.58 Q

Heinecke did exceptionally well in her heat, placing fourth.

Women's 200m Freestyle

Heats

Maj Vikhaga ANA 1:56.71 Q
Sarah Jacobs KRY 1:56.82 Q
Ireen Arcadia UUT 1:56.92 Q
Maricela Horman TKP 1:56.95 Q
Gina Korintjes SPR 1:57.04 Q
Syku Ka~nsu REJ 1:57.17 Q
Kelly Smith ALG 1:57.36 Q
Noémi Levi ARI 1:57.44 Q
Kam Abelar MIL 1:57.56 Q
Carol Gale ARI 1:57.57 Q
Laticia Van Bael SPR 1:57.58 Q
Jessica Foote ALG 1:57.68 Q
Livvy Crow BDS 1:57.74 Q
Alexandra Diern MAC 1:57.81 Q
Jessica Rubik UUT 1:57.92 Q
Siki Hatime REJ 1:58.09 Q

Semifinals

Maricela Horman TKP 1:56.63 Q
Jessica Rubik UUT 1:56.66 Q
Carol Gale ARI 1:56.75 Q
Siki Hatime REJ 1:56.83 Q
Gina Korintjes SPR 1:57.18 Q
Ireen Arcadia UUT 1:57.31 Q
Alexandra Diern MAC 1:57.32 Q
Noémi Levi ARI 1:57.68 Q

Maricela Horman placed in the top four for qualifying, then won the semifinal heats in the 200m Freestyle earlier today.

We asked Mike Phelps why the influx of swimming achievements is suddenly occuring, when our athletes are best known for running and other athletics.

"Well, I think the difference in elevation has made a significant difference. The larger the difference in elevation, the better the athletes perform. The difference between Kazoo City and Tyrellia is about 3000 feet, so it obviously makes a huge difference."

Thanks, Mike.

Team Sports

Women's Water Polo

Pool B W L
Algal States 1 0
Spruitland 1 0
Kelse 0 1
The Kazoo Peoples 0 1

It was apparent that the Women's team is not as good as the Men's Water Polo team, as they dropped an easy match against Spruitland 10-7.

MEDAL COUNT

Nation G S B T
Spruitland 2 0 0 2
The Kazoo Peoples 1 2 0 3
Starblaydia 1 0 1 2
Casari 1 0 0 1
Milchama 1 0 0 1
Bedistan 0 2 2 4
Chicanada 0 1 0 1
Uhuh-Topia 0 1 0 1
Algal States 0 0 1 1
Rejistania 0 0 1 1
---

[[OOC: Exhaustive RP. Sorry about the sloppiness, but I am tired and am going to bed]]

Capital District Standard

Day 3 Recap at the 1934 Summer Ylompics

Football
While the Mens National Football Team was being dismantled, the Womens National Football Team was showing why it's among the favorites, as Hennessy's Lacie Y'zian scored her own international hattrick and the Lady Kodiaks scored an impressive 3-1 victory over Uhuh-Topia to put them in a tie for the top of Group C with Aridda. The Side still faces their fellow top side along with Rejistania, who could be pesky, before the Quaterfinals. Many peg the Womens Team the one to beat, thanks to the constant investment by the CFA to build the womens game, but always keep an eye out on Starblaydia, who's women's leagues are the biggest rivals to the W League. National Coach (and coach for Rapids WFC) Arin Minot said she hopes the Ylompics will encourage the NSFA to create a Womens World Cup, arguing that while some nations do have women playing alongside men in the NSWC (which the Kodiaks are pulling from thanks to their lackluster play) that there is not enough done to promote women participating on mens teams, and as such a competition for women could bridge the gap and allow for equality in the Football community between the sexes. Since it might be the only way Chicanada wins a World Title, we could agree with it.

Gymnastics
The Kodiak Mens Gymnastics Team kept up with the ladies, as they finished second in qualifying and easily made it to the Team Finals, where the group is a strong contender for the Gold. And the men did rather well making it to the individual finals, with some calling for a 1-2 finish in vault. Four medals, however, might be the best we can do, based on the qualifying results. Maybe 5, if Xli can live up to the hype on the Even Bars.

Which guys qualified for Finals:

Team Event - All (Second)
All Around - Jorden Long (Ninth), Eric Glansen (Eighteenth), Jorden Mantis (Twenty-first)
Floor - Eric Glansen (12th), Jorden Long (Thirteenth)
Bar - Jorden Mantis (Fifth), Jorden Long (Ninth)
Bars - Xli Peesien (Fourth), Paul Glansen (12th), Jorden Long (Sixteenth)
Vault - Ashley Quolen (First), Xli Peesien (Fifth), Jorden Mantis (Ninth)
Pommel - Jorden Long (First)
Rings - Eric Glansen (Thirteenth)

Long, the National Champion, did make the cut in five of the six, but a really bad rings set could hurt him in the AA and keep him from doing the event in the Team Finals. Vault expert Quolen looks to continue his win streak on the event here, as the expert continues to impress with his array of possible jumps.

Rowing
In rowing, a relatively new sport to Chicanada, the noiviceness showed in the preliminary runs, with major competitor Yizpli Olax missing the Quaterfinal runs in single and double skulls. Aston Jackson & Nedric Passia did, however, make the runs in double skulls, in a mild surprise for the Collegiate champs from Sabra Canton. Anna Heisel & Tina Smith as well as Regina Long & Paris Long mde the final 12 in womens double skulls, and do have a challenge in front of them to make a run at the medals, as Jackson/Passia do. The Quad Skulls did learn they did make it to the Semifinal runs due to a lack of participants, making their medal chances increase more than the three doubles teams.

Cycling
In Mens Road Race, Eric Heimel finished a rather distant 16th, nearly 17 minutes off the winning time posted by Starblaydia's Juan Svoboda. Jorden Bastian came in 24th, around 7 minutes behind Heimel's time.

Exhibition Sports
The Mens Rugby Team, coached by Risian coach Ylamir D'jan, showed why they are the team to beat in the exhibiton sport (at least until Risa-Aramour, their former nationmembers, join the NSIOC) after a sound 20-5 win over Schiavonia. The team still faces Starblaydia, Milchama, Collonie and Krytenia before the Medal Round.

Ylompics Slow For D&S Athletes

Ylompic Day 3 Review for Dorian & Sonya

Few of our athletes were in action today. The Fencing and Archery have not yet begun, so that explains it. And the results for the day were decent enough for a “backwards” nation trying to make some headway against the more dominant forces here in Tryellia, Casari.

Day 3 saw more medals handed out - this time in swimming where we have very few participating. The medals were won by people fortunate enough not to have faced us. :D

Also the men’s road race was run today with Juan Svboda of Starblaydia taking home the Gold. Samuel Baldwin of the Kazoo Peoples was a distant 2nd and just edged out Sesh Shawe of Ariddia for the Silver. Our own Virgilio Haagensen finished next to last where he was expected to be at. But he did manage to beat out Menkil Maohi of Registania by 5 huge minutes. Miracles do happen.

Deangelo Cacibauda narrowly missed qualification in men’s single skulls. The fact that he was even close can be seen by some as an upset of sorts. Ayana Leasher was not as strong in the women’s single skulls, finishing near the bottom of the table. Long Hetcham and Garret Mcclaim did pull the shocker as they qualified 3rd in men’s double skulls, behind teams from Andossa Se Mitrin Vega and Krytenia. Perhaps a medal is possible. Signe Calamare and Tomika Devreese finished nearly 8 seconds off the pace and in last place in the women’s double skulls event.

Len Durol continued to struggle in the men’s Finn Race despite his world ranking in the event. But race #4 saw him live up to his reputation and finish in first. Unfortunately that result still leaves him well down the table and with little chance for a medal.

All in all we still feel really upbeat about our performance here. The new country and its modern ideas and technology may be affecting our athletes a bit more than we would like, but every single person from the Kingdom has given 100% and earned the respect of everyone around them. Now we just hope that Hetcham and Mcclaim can hold off the competition in double skulls and earn the first medal for Dorian and Sonya here.

ASMV Proves Excellence in a Number of Events.

This is Bryce Farve reporting all your ASMV Ylompic news from Day 3.

ASMV athletes were in competition all over Tyrellia as more events got under way. And again it was with mixed results.

Swimming events handed out medals, but as we did not send any swimmers to Tyrellia, we really don’t care.

Carey Kuemmerle proved a point to road racers from Dorian and Sonya and Rejistania, but it was the other 25 riders he should have paid more attention to. But he did beat someone, so that counts for something - right?

ASMV men’s gymnastics fared a bit better. In fact they fared better than the women did, qualifying 3rd in the team competition. And they were impressive in individual events as well. Nolan Butkowski finished 3rd in the all-around qualifications while team mate Moises Tonsil qualified in the all-around as well. Rejistania is the team to watch as all 6 men qualified for the all-around competition.Floor Exercise saw Carey Langfeld and Nolan Butkowski qualify 4th & 5th. Kendrick Jerdon and Alvaro Axsom also qualified in the floor exercise as well. High bar found Carey Lotzer, Axsom, and Tonsil in the running but down the list just a bit. Tonsil and Butkowski made finished 5th and 6th in the parallel bar event. Butkowski and Jerdon qualified in the vault as well. Pommel horse finds as the second best qualifier and Tonsil made the cut as well. And rings also has a Vegan in second spot with Langfeld. Axsom is a bit further down the list.

The national sport of ASMV is, of course, rowing. And we had some mixed results on the water today. Men’s single skulls saw Hal Kellenburger and Ali Tyger both qualify, but neither was spectacular today - not by our standards anyway. Women’s single skulls saw Delsie Wamboldt and Bibi Fabionar qualify as well - but yet again without our usual flair.

It was the double skulls events where ASMV proved some of its rowing prowess. In the men’s event, Marlin Lupardus and Bryon Venditto finished a whopping ½ second faster than the competition supplied by Krytenia and Dorian & Sonya. Hal Kallenberger and Ali Tyger also qualified in the event. Deadra Izard and Francene Denbo also ruled the double skulls for the women as the finished 1st with stiff competition from Schiavonia. Wamboldt/Fabionar just missed qualification after a horrid run for the pair. Pura Gearon and Eufemia Shuemaker moved into the finals of the light double skulls event.

Alvaro Caranza and Rob Conell continue to overachieve in the men’s 470 sailing event, winning race 3 and sitting in a tie for third to this point. Twanda Olsin and Ja Faylor are sittin in 4th in the women’s 470 event and still have hopes for a medal. Rob Conell struggled in race 4 of the Finn competition and dropped to 6th in the standings. Delsie Rothgaber pulled a surprise by winning race 1 and coming in 5th in race 2 of the Laser event. Now Rothgaber sits atop the standings. Yanike Pauluoss also did well in the Laser event and holds down the 4th spot in the standings.

Our women’s basketball team proved the power of ASMV hoops by destroying the team from Schiavonia 74-56. The men were off today and so could not pound anyone into submission.

Men’s Beach Volleyball was not nearly as kind as ASMV 1 was crushed by the team from Rejistania. ASMV 2 was not in action and so did not lose.

And finally our women’s cricket team, Yes we actually have one, was defeated by two wickets against Anastasiania. Unfortunately we cant tell you if that means we were really close or we had our asses handed to us. Anyone know how to score cricket? No? Oh well.

The Schiavone Scribe
Ylompics going badly

With one of hte biggest squads at the Ylompic Games in Tyrellia, Casari, Schaivonia were expected to put in a respectable performance in the medal table.

Alas, it has not been so far. In the six events completed so far, Schiavonia have won a grand total of nothing!

OK, to be fair, four of the events were in the pool, where, Schiavonia has a grand total of one entry, on the grounds that Schiavones can't swim.

But still, the other two were in cycling. Something Schiavonia shouldn't be too bad at. But were.

Out best performance so far has been from Colin Grazie, who finished an agonising fourth in the Men's Road Race. Though maybe less agonising considering the gap of over a minute to the medal winners.

Then there are the other events that take a number of days to find a winner in. And we suck in those, too!

Our female gymnastics team qualified, but only in an unpromising fifth place. The male team were all but hopeless. We also lost at Football, Basketball and Rugby. Our sailing hopefuls are also having a rough time on the waves, though it is still too early for any judgement there.

There were some rays of hope, though. In rowning, Wendy Daniel was the fastest qualifier in the opening round of the Women's Single Skulls, while the only event in which a Schiavone did not progress was the Women's Light Double Skulls. Both of our cricket teams are still unbeaten, while Beach Volleyball seems to be coming along alright, too.

On a lighter note, Schiavonia's only swimmer, Noel Gideon, didn't finish a few minutes after everybody else, as was expected. Indeed, he didn't even finish after everybody else. He was tenth fastest in the heats out of twenty-one competetors, so well done to Noel, and to those that he beat... HA HA HA!!! You must really suck! Beaten by a Schiavone swimmer?!? What were you thinking?


Nation G S B T
Spruitland 2 0 0 2
The Kazoo Peoples 1 2 0 3
Starblaydia 1 0 1 2
Casari 1 0 0 1
Milchama 1 0 0 1
Bedistan 0 2 2 4
Chicanada 0 1 0 1
Uhuh-Topia 0 1 0 1
Algal States 0 0 1 1
Rejistania 0 0 1 1

Schiavonia 0 0 0 0

Algal States gets first medal at ylompics.

In a busy day of competition Algal States earned a bronze medal courtesy of Jessica Foote in the 100m Breaststroke final with a personal best time of 1:06.45 after which she told the media that she was ecstatic about winning a medal and how she would have been happy with just the personal best. Jessica followed up her bronze medal by qualifying for the 200m Butterfly final. In other swimming events, Alan deveau had a PB time of 55.03 in the 100m backstroke which was good enough for 6th place.David Smith also qualified in the 100m Breaststroke. Swimming continues tomorrow.

The rowing started their day with a bang as world class athlete Arnaud Cloutier qualified in the mens' single skulls. Not to be out done however the women followed that up by qualifying all 3 rowers in the single skulls, led by Zelma Mourer who qualified 2nd with a PB time of 7:08.08. The rowing team also had one qualifier in the mens' Double Skulls and two qualifiers in the womens' Double Skulls. In the light double skulls both the men and the women were able to qualify one boat for their respective finals with the mens' team of Alan doucette and Tom Foote qualifying first with a time of 6:10.32. After the days' races Arnaud Cloutier told the media,"This is a great course and hopefully we can have a day like this every day of the competition, everyone was just great today especially the women who were on fire after qualifying all their single skulls. We just have to keep this up and set the bar high for the paddling team when they arrive."

Out on the bay, the sailing team had another mixed day as the mens' and womens' 470s' continued to struggle as the fields proved again to very tough and after 4 races both teams sit at the bottom of the standings. The mens' finn class racers had a miserable day and both sit near the bottom after 4 races. The one bright spot for the team was Jack Cooper who rebounded from a bad first race in the laser class by winning the 2nd race and sits in 6th place overall.

In team competition the womens' national football team started things off right with a hard fought 1-0 win over the host nation,Casari, They face Allanea in their next match. In Beach Volleyball the mens' lone team needed three sets to defeat the the host nations' 2nd team in a difficult match-up. The womens water polo team ended the day by dominating Kelse in a 7-5 win.
In other news, Algal States television announced that they would be in Tyrellia to broadcast the next day of competition.

Shawe takes bronze!

A lot of events and a lot of excitement at the Ylompics today, with several medals being decided. . . and Ariddia’s first medal being won! The official medal table mistakenly forgot to include it, but we can confirm that Ariddia has indeed won a medal. It was bronze, it was in road cycling, and we’ll be going over that very shortly. First, an overview of the other main events.

Timothy Gerhk of Milchama won gold for his country in swimming, in the men’s 100m backstroke final, while Dorsey Anijs of Spuitland also earned a gold medal, this time over 200 metres, in freestyle. Many Ariddians will have been cheering for Ropa-Topian Lars Sepers, who came very close to being Uhuhland’s first Olympic champion, but just missed out by seven hundredths of a second, and took silver instead. Other gold medallists in the pool were Reg Alley of the Kazoo Peoples, and Nita Eckhart of Casari, so we’ve been hearing a variety of national anthems today.

And it was the turn of Ariddian women to compete in the pool, with Carol Gale and Noémi Lévi in the heats of the 200m freestyle. Lévy finished eighth fastest out of twenty-six, qualifying for next stages, where she was joined by her compatriot Carol Gale, who also made it through, qualifying tenth. From the rest of Uhuhland, Ropa-Topia’s Ireen Arcadia qualified in a comfortable third place, and her team mate Jessica Rubik squeezed in, in fifteenth. Ropa-Topia’s Phoebe Buitendam and San Adriano’s Sabrina Vannucci, however, failed to qualify. A bad blow for Vannucci, who’s one of her country’s only two representatives in these Games.

In the semis, all four remaining Uhuhland ladies shone, with Rubik qualifying second fastest, and Gale third. Arcadia came in sixth, while Lévi hung on in eighth place, her time of 1:57.68 just enough to see her into the final. So that’ll be two opportunities for an Ariddian medal, and something we’ll be watching closely. The fastest qualifier, and favourite for gold, was Maricela Horman of the Kazoo Peoples.

In a completely different field, the men had to face qualifying for gymnastics, and everyone back home was hoping the Ariddians would do as well as their female counterparts, who came out on top of the qualifiers yesterday. The Ariddian men, perhaps fuelled by the example the women had set, impressed the judges and the spectators, just edging out Chicana for that first place, with 156.553 points. Sae Iu scored 9.987 on the high bar, an almost flawless performance, and 9.985 on the rings horse; Iu finished second overall on the high bar, first on the rings, and first on overall score, with 58.77. He’ll be a favourite for gold, and fans will be waiting excitedly for him to compete for those medals.

Also very impressive in gymnastics were Ashley Quolen of Chicanada, who was awarded a score of 9.965 on the vault. Kelsian Riyo Nalik’s superb performance in the floor exercises, rewarded with a score of 9.984, means he’ll also need watching.

In sailing, the Mistral events have not yet begun, so Séraphine Djidonou is still waiting to start, but today witnessed several races in rowing, in which Ariddia’s athletes took part. Rowing proved a popular event, as twenty-eight athletes took part in the heats for the men’s skulls. Ariddia’s sole participant, Richard Zhaunou, was, he says, “quite startled and very, very happy” to qualify joint-second fastest, nine hundredths of a second behind Casari’s Timothy Ewell. He’ll be going into the next round with hopes for a medal, although Anastasiania’s Sune Björmark will also be a significant threat.

The women’s singles’ heats were won by Schiavonian Wendy Daniel, with no Ariddian taking part, while in the heats of the women’s doubles’, Ariddians Natasha McCulloch and Kimberley Davies finished a disappointing fifteenth. McCulloch and Davies were also knocked out of the light doubles, so that, sadly, is the end of the Ylompics for them. In the men’s light doubles, Zhaunou and Victor Yehiel got no further than their heat either, but in the double skulls they finished ninth overall, and earned a place in the next round.

Beach volleyball, always a popular sport, began today for the men, and representing Ariddia are Fabian Mendez and Ish Aeu. Drawn in Pool B, they went up against a team from Schiavonia for their opening match, and went out after just two rounds, 21-9, 21-18. In the same pool, Kelse dispatched Starblaydia 21-12, 21-3.

And we conclude this recap with the two events many of you are most looking forward to – football, and a look at Ariddia’s first medal in cycling.

The men’s football has yet to begin for Ariddia, but the women were underway today, with all eyes on them to live up to the expectations of their cheering compatriots. Ariddia faced Rejistania, and, faced with defensive playing, successfully scored two goals without conceding, giving the Ariddians an encouraging three points to start the competition with. In the same pool, Chicanada defeated Ropa-Topia by three goals to one, making Ariddia the only team in pool C to have conceded no goal in their first match.

We’ll obviously be watching their progress with great interest, but now we take you to cycling. Ariddia has only two athletes entered in cycling, and Deirdre Khangal went yesterday in the women’s road race. You all remember her heartbreaking fourth place after almost three hours of intense effort; well, today Sesh Shawe was looking to do as well, if not better, in the men’s. He was up against difficult odds, with twenty-seven opponents on the starting line. Shawe described himself as “fit, ready and calm” before the start of the race. He began well, but content to follow the pace-setters rather than charge ahead. Amongst his most dangerous competitors right from the early stages seemed to be Juan Svoboda and Philip Greenfield, both of Starblaydia. Shawe remained within the top nine from beginning to end, although few cyclists actually ever lagged behind. The group only began very slowly to stretch, with Shawe pedalling hard to keep with the leaders.

He was in fifth after four hours, showing some signs of tiring but no more so than his competitors. Drawing on some remaining spurt of energy in those final minutes, he was able to edge up another two places, and, with roughly twenty minutes to go, had established a significant lead over Schiavonia’s Colin Grazie in fourth. It seemed the podium was already decided at that stage, and indeed it was, as Shawe triumphantly came in third, behind Svoboda and the Kazoo People’s Samuel Baldwin, to claim Ariddia’s first ever Ylompic medal.

“This one’s for me and Deirdre,” he said after the medal ceremony. “She deserves it just as much as I do.”

Monica Gaskins looked at the results board as she got out of the pool.

W 200m Freestyle Heats

...
Livvy Crow BDS 1:57.74 Q
Alexandra Diern MAC 1:57.81 Q
Jessica Rubik UUT 1:57.92 Q
Siki Hatime REJ 1:58.09 Q
Monica Gaskins BDS 1:58.09
Danielle Baxter KRY 1:58.11
Antónia Alvaresa BDS 1:58.31
Pheobe Buitendam UUT 1:58.33
...

"But...but..." she sputtered. "Why does the Rejistanian chick go through and I don't? Who decides these things? Surely the tiebreaker should be alphabetical order, either by the name of the athlete or the name of the nation...or even an extra tiebreaker heat! This is an outrage!" And she stormed off to the locker room in tears.

The young man approaching the bare-chested woman laying on a towel on a remote section of Wilson Beach looked nervous. He wasn’t the kind of young man you’d normally see on the beach, and certainly not the kind that approached bare-chested women. He was overweight, over-dressed for the location, both of which made him sweat like a pig, and it was hard to tell whether the flush on his cheeks was due to the heat or due to his embarrassment. But he had no choice but to approach the perfectly shaped body laying on the towel.

He had every opportunity to gaze freely at the body, since the woman was laying on her back with a magazine spread over her face, but he didn’t. He stood in front of her, turned sideways, and carefully avoided looking down.

“Miss Van Houdt? Is that you, Miss Van Houdt, from Spruitland?”

“You’re blocking my sun, kid,” Kelly Van Houdt said from under the magazine, not bothering to move. The young man almost jumped aside, moving his shadow away from her.

“I’m sorry, Miss, but it’s just that…” He glanced at his watch.

“How did you recognize me?”

“What? Oh… erm… I dunno… I just…” She put the magazine aside, looked at him, smiled.

“Relax, kid, I don’t bite. Well, not usually, anyway. What’s so urgent that you’re risking a few pounds of body weight to come find me here?”

She picked up a bottle of sun lotion, put some on her hand, and started rubbing it on her chest and shoulders. The kid turned another shade of red. He turned around completely now, putting his back to her.

“I… well… It’s your beach volley match, Miss. It was supposed to start 5 minutes ago. We’ve been looking for you all over.”

“Gosh, is that today? Can’t we do it tomorrow? I’d like to work on my tan a bit more.”

“Impossible, Miss, the schedule’s very strict!” He nervously glanced at his watch.

“Oh, alright then, I suppose we can do it today,” she sighed, setting the bottle of lotion aside and putting on a bikini top. That obviously relaxed the young man a bit. Not much though.

“Is, erm… Miss Leckerding around, by any chance?”

Kelly glanced at the spread out towel beside her. “Hmmm, she was here just a bit ago...”

The kid ground his teeth in frustration. “Well, we need to find her too, Miss. And fast, if you want to make it on time.”

“Heck, I dunno, hun, she… oh, there she is!”

Sofie Leckerding wasn’t quite as tall as Kelly, but she was shaped just as perfectly – something that was quite obvious as she came out of the water, topless and dripping. And she was blonde, which was always an asset as well, though her hair looked a bit darker now because it was wet. She waved from a distance, smiling a perfect wet-dream-smile.

“Can you believe that,” she shouted, pointing at her breasts. “I lost my top in the waves!” The kid didn’t know which way to turn.

“Somewhere out there is a dolphin with a 700 dollar designer bikini top,” Sofie giggled, reaching for her towel. She winked at Kelly, then glanced at the young man as she started drying off. “Oh, are you the waiter? I could kill for a Pina Colada!”

The kid opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came out. Frustration and sweat dripped down from his face. He looked at his watch, opened his mouth again.

“We gotta go play, Sof,” Kelly said in his place. “Like, right now, apparently.”

“Play volley? Gee, is that today? Well, we can’t do it today, I’ve got a waxing in an hour. Let’s do it tomorrow.”

“NO!! It’s gotta be now! You have to come with me NOW!!” The kid was panting; his left eye twitched with a nervous tic. Sofie and Kelly looked at him with raised eyebrows.

“Well alright then, sugar,” Sofie finally said, “no need to get all excited ‘n’ stuff.” She smirked at Kelly. “Guess we’re gonna play ball. Oh wait. I don’t have a top. We’ll have to pass through the village first.”

“There’s no time!” the kid pleaded, slightly more in control of himself. He checked his watch. “If you’re not there in… seven minutes, it’ll be a forfait!”

“Hell, I guess we better hurry then, huh? Lead the way, kid.”

“Sof, you can’t play topless, girl.”

“Wanna bet? It’s topless or not at all, apparently. I don’t mind.”

Kelly hesitated for a moment, then nodded, took off her top as well and dropped it. “Alright then. Six minutes, we’re gonna have to scramble.”

They ran across Wilson Beach, towards the temporary stands and courts where the beach volleyball competition was being held. The kid was doing his best to keep up, but was having a hard time of it.

Kelly grinned at her friend. “What, did you think I was gonna let you get all the attention?”

A logo appears on the screen, it looks like the camera is approaching the logo (which pretty much they did that effect) while the introduction music is played. The logo is in rejistanian alphabet but after we switch on the magical translator of RP, we are able to understand it: TV Esuvorto Ylompic Update. Cut to a studio, which is in green: the walls, the desk and the chair are in different shades of green. While the music is continuing, anchorman Elin Ri, a grey haired, about 50 year old man clad in a beige suit, hushes to his place. A tradition in Rejistanian television is to avoid to cut directly to a person. The music ends just as Elin sits down.

Elin Ri: Hejida honored viewers*, welcome to the Ylom'ic Update. We are today on the third day, in case you were not following it. I am glad to announce that the first medal was won by a Rejistanian athlete. Syku Soiha has reached the third place in the backstroke competition over the distance of one hundred meters. We have a report about it.

The scene shows the inside of the Ylompic Aquatic Center, then zooms to the the start.

Voiceover: Soiha'he had a bad start, but we can see here how he catches up... and despite that slight disadvantage manages to catch up. (silence) But we can see that he does not manage to be faster than Regis O'Hara of the Kazoo people.

Next scene shows the camera turn to Syku Soiha and a reporter:

Reporter: How do you feel now?

Soiha: Great!

Reporter: Did you meet your expectations?

Soiha: Yes. I surely did, more than that.

The next scene is the studio again. again a quick sweep is done which avoids Elin Ri to be in the picture directly.

Elin Ri: Now for the gymnastic team. Today was the qualification for men and fortunately the Rejistanian lasane did better than the female team did. All Rejistani competitors advanced into the different competitions, domestic champion Kansu Jeri had the best individual ranking and will represent the nation in the all round, floor-exercise, parallel bars, rings and pommel horse. Let's look at his performance.

The next scene shows the slim, bald black Kansu Jeri at his parallel bars performance. There is no voiceover, but an eery music plays in the background.

Elin Ri: In cycling, Rejistanis never excelled. Minkil Maohi surely did not after he fell dramatically and insisted on continuing the race. He did finish last, but managed to finish.


*He here uses the polite unspecified form, the translation is not quite exact.

Noémi Lévi Ylompic Champion!

Back to Tyrellia, with news from the swimming pool. It was women’s freestyle events which grabbed our attention again today, as Noémi Lévi and Carol Gale went in the heats for the one hundred metres. Both qualified, in sixth and fifteenth place, earning a spot each in the semi-finals. . . which came up right after that. Supportive fans cheered them on, and a group of young male supporters held up a large banner which read: ‘NOEMI, CAROL, VOULEZ-VOUS NOUS EPOUSEZ?’. Sadly, both athletes underperformed, in terms of their earlier standards, and will be absent from the final. By contrast, Phoebe Buitendam and Jessica Rubik of Ropa-Topia both made it into the final, where they’ll be up against the likes of Bedistan’s Sharlene Saleta and Spruitland’s Laetiticia Van Bael.

Not all was lost, however, as we also witnessed earlier the final of the women’s 200m Freestyle, which pitted Lévi and Gale against each other and six other of the world’s best athletes. It was the first final any Ariddians had qualified for, and was watched with excitement by cheering supporters waving the black, red and green flag.

It was an extremely close race from the start, and, in almost two minutes, none of the eight competitors was truly left behind, nor did any succeed in pulling decisively ahead. Lévi and Gale both remained close to the lead, performing solidly, and, as Lévi and Rejistania’s Siki Hatime touched the edge of the pool, both women had to turn to the scoreboard to find who had actually won it. Noémi let out a squeal of delight as the board lit up, informing her that she was Ylompic Champion, one tenth of a second ahead of Hatime. The new champion hugged her fellow competitors, then hugged team mate Carol Gale, openly expressing her joy by the side of the pool. Gale herself finished fourth, eleven hundredths of a second outside the podium.

“I’m really happy for Noémi,” Gale said shortly thereafter. “She’s a great athlete and a really nice person, she’s been training very, very hard, and I know she’s overjoyed with winning. She really deserved it.” Regarding her own performance, she added, “Yes, of course, coming fourth is always a disappointment. You tell yourself, if I’d had just that little bit more energy, that little bit more determination. . . But fourth in the final of the Ylompic Games is. . . wow. I never imagined I’d get this far. I’m happy with my performance. I did the best I could, and I. . . found out that best was better than what I thought it was,” she explained with a laugh.

Lévi, for her part, was breathless with excitement.

“I can’t believe it! It still hasn’t sunk in! I was so, so happy and excited to actually be in the final, and I tried so hard. . . but I never actually thought of what would happen if I won it! I was just focusing so hard on trying to do it. And then when I was on the podium, and the flag went up, and I listened to the anthem, and I had this medal around my neck. . . I just cried, it was so amazing. I mean, they were playing the anthem because I’m bringing a medal home for my country, and that’s. . . well. . . I, I just want to say a huge thank you to my family, and everyone who’s helped me, and Carol, she’d have deserved this too. . . Thank you to all of you!” she finished, tears still staining her cheeks, too breathless and emotional to continue.

This is Ariddia’s first gold medal in the Games, and comes after Sesh Shawe won bronze in the men’s road race in cycling.

No medals in sight for Games’ smallest delegation

It was not unexpected, but it was certainly a bitter disappointment. Sabrina Vannucci, one of her country’s only two representatives at the Ylompic Games, finished twenty-sixth and last in the heats of the women’s 200m freestyle yesterday, before failing to qualify today in the 100m event. Vannucci, wearing a chequered green and red swimsuit, the only such one in sight, finished twenty-fifth out of twenty-eight. She still has two qualifying races to go in other events, but is not getting her hopes up.

“I come from a tiny country,” she told reporters. “You might not even find it on most maps. There are only four hundred of us living there. I knew I probably wasn’t going to shine here in Tyrellia, and that an athlete on her own from a small country would find it very, very hard against the world’s best. There isn’t even an Olympic-size swimming pool where I come from. There’s just the pool in the village gym, which is used by school children as well.”

There were no Sanadrianese at all present to watch her, except her family, although most of the villagers back home were probably glued to their television screens to follow the woman they already refer to as “our national champion”. Vannucci was surprised, however, to find that some spectators had apparently heard of San Adriano, and had decided to give the tiny country’s lone swimmer some support.

“People were holding banners which said ‘Go San Adriano!’, ‘Vannucci for Gold!’ and ‘Sabrina, you’re the best!’. And some had bought our national flag and were waving it. I know they weren’t villagers; they were people who just wanted to cheer me on. It was quite moving, and I’m really very grateful to them. Their support helped me a lot, and perhaps with their help I’ll do better next time.”


OOC: San Adriano’s sport code is SNA, not SAD. Even if the latter might be more appropriate, considering the results. ;)

SILVER for Peesgong, BRONZE for Korintjes!

Well, our one gold medal per day average no longer stands, but we got a silver and a bronze instead, so we’re not complaining. And what’s more, we get to start our report with cycling again today, just as it should be. Hurray!

The Women’s Time Trial was the big event of the day for Spruitlanders, with Valerie Platt expected to make up for her failure in the road race. Valerie was one of the last riders to start, but the checkpoints along the way soon made it clear that she did not have a super day. Her 5th place was a respectable result, but not quite as good as she had hoped. “Still had some lead in my legs from the road race,” she explained afterwards. “Never really felt top notch.”

Oprah Peesgong, however, did feel top notch, and as one of the first riders off the block, she set a strong time for the others to strive to. For a long time it seemed like she would be holding on to the top spot, as rider after rider came up short, but Schiavonian Queenie Brewster did manage to nip three seconds off her time at the very end.

“Ah, well, gold would’ve been nice,” Oprah smiled, “but we already had two of those, and a bronze as well. So now we’ve got a silver too!”

Indeed, an hour before the start of the time trial, a bronze medal had been added to Spruitland’s tally, at the Ylompic Aquatic Center. After Dorsey Anijs’ gold in the men’s 200 meter Freestyle yesterday, Gina Korintjes had something to live up to in the women’s equivalent. To be honest, gold was never quite within reach for Gina, as that was a close affair between an Ariddian and a Rejistani swimmer. Gina battled it out for bronze with another Ariddian in an equally close sprint, and she snatched the bronze by 0.11 seconds.

The only other medal-contender of the day, Daria Hammel, came in 6th in the 200 meter Butterfly. Overall, it was a good day for Spruitland’s swimmers though. Gina Korintjes saw more action, in the 100 meter Freestyle, but it was painfully obvious that this was not her strongest event, failing to even reach the semis. Laticia Van Bael did better in that event, clocking the second time in the semis to make her a favorite for a medal tomorrow.

The three other swimmers in action all qualified for the final, so apart from Laticia, Spruitland will have Darius Klodden in the 200 meter Breaststroke and Marleen Kuykenberg and Viola Kerstens in the 200 meter Backstroke competing for a medal tomorrow. This swimming stuff is getting kinda exciting, even if it is a much more boring sport than cycling.

Other stuff

Not a whole lot of other stuff going on today, but still some things worth mentioning, if for nothing else than for completeness sake. Rowing was moved to tomorrow because the water was too wet, or something, but that was not a problem for the sailers, apparently.

Aaron Bakboordt, who was in the lead in the Finn class after day one, is slowly slipping further down the rankings. He capsized three times in Race 5, had a decent enough Race 6, and is now in 4th place, just over halfway into the competition. Lien Van Thiel had a great start in the Europe class, managing a first and fourth place finish to take the joint lead after day one. Undoubtedly she’ll start slipping soon as well.

The baseball team played their second pool match today, with starting pitcher Ramon Lowie-Parra utterly confusing the opposition’s batters with his trademarked Psychedelic Curveball, a pitch that, when done right, is extremely difficult to hit. They beat the team fro Crna Gora Liv Eng 5 to 3, putting them well on their way into the next round.

And finally, Sofie Leckerding and Kelly Van Houdt played their first match in women’s beach volleyball today, surprising everyone by playing topless. There was some initial confusion whether this was against the rules or not, and the referee asked for female spectators to volunteer their bikini tops for the players to wear, but the handful that was the right size was dismissed by Sofie and Kelly as “last year’s model.” Eventually, a compromise was reached, and Spruitland’s team colors were painted on the women’s breasts, so the competition could continue. The entire sporting world is looking forward to their next match, in three days. Oh yeah, for those who care, Sofie and Kelly won their match against Algal States in two convincing sets.

More of the same tomorrow, with potential Spruitland medals to be won in swimming and – of course – in cycling, with the Men’s Time Trial. So, it’ll hopefully be only for a good 24 hours that we’ll be able to say: Four Medals, Baby!

Day 4 Ylompic Update
Saint-Monica Nautique

Tyrellia, CAS - With Day 4 of the Tyrellian Ylompics over, the results are in and once again, Kelse has had mixed results. Today's update starts with the Mens' Finn Race, which took place at Weili Rowing and Yacht club. In Race 5 Ryan Nortel placed 1st with a time of 1:02:47.91 while Jose Sonero struggled at 8th with a time of 1:04:37.52. In the 6th race, Nortel went from 1st to place 12th with a time of 1:05:41.62 while Sonero placed 7th with a time of 1:03:46.91. The current standings for the Finn race place Nortel at 2nd while Sonero sits at 8th. In the 3rd Laser Race, Andrew Skorello placed 6th while Treo Centino was right behind him at 7th. In the 4th Laser Race, Skorello placed 5th while Centino sat at 9th. The current standings for the Laser Race put Centino at 3rd and Skorello at 9th. In the Womens' Europe Race 1, Kora Detorro placed 7th while Kina Detorro placed 8th, while in Race 2 Kora placed 2nd while Kina placed 13th. The current standings have Kora at 3rd and Kina at 10th. At the last Sailing Event of the day, the 49er, Rilo Kelo & Maria Borelli placed 3rd in the 1st Race with a time of 1:05:34.47, however they made 1st in the 2nd Race with a time of 1:03:08.68. They sit at 2nd behind Delitares/Solira, of the host-nation Casari.

The next event takes us to Crie Field at the National Sports Complex, where the ladies' faced another defeat, this time at the hands of Milchama with a score of 2-3. In Mens' Handball out at Emeri Brewing Arena won their first match against Andossa Si Mirtin Vega 29-20. In Womens' Volleyball, the ladies' defeated Milchama in four games, 25-8, 22-25, 25-11, and 25-3. The win puts them at the top of their pool. The Womens' Beach Volleyball, the Kelsian team had a bye while all other teams played. With that, this Ylompic Update is over, and Kelse has yet to win a medal, but it'll happen, and until next time, go Kelse!

Len Durol Continues to Struggle

D&S Ylompic Report


Day 4 was again a slow one for athletes from Dorian and Sonya. So we will report the news that we have.

Swimming

The only athletes competing for the Kingdom in the swimming events are in the 50m freestyle events which have not taken place as of yet. But we have been watching the competition in order to size up our competition.

Medals were handed out in several events. Men’s 100m breaststroke saw Stuart Stamper of The Kazoo Peoples swim away with the Gold while David Smith (Algal States) and Mathew Hauer of Casari took the silver and bronze. Women’s 100m Backstroke found Kansu Syku of Rejistania wearing the Gold, while Biddy Lytle (Bedistan) and Syku Kansu (Rejistania) sollected the silver and bronze. We do wonder over the name similarities of the two Rejistanian swimmers. Women’s 200m Butterfly awarded its Gold to Nora Falk of Anastasiania. Ltara Jen (Rejistania) and Anna Utterstrom (Anastasiania) found silver and bronze. Women’s 200m Freestyle gave its gold medal to Noemi Levi of Ariddia. Siki Hatime(Rejistania) and Gina Korintjes of Spruitland earned silver and bronze.

Cycling

The Women’s Time trial was run today with Queenie Brewster of Schiavonia taking the Gold. Oprah Peesgong of Spruitland rode away with Silver and Sarah Finnegan of Chicanada had an easy ride for bronze.

Sailing

Len Durol continued to struggle in the Men’s Finn competition. Poor results in the 5th and 6th races dropped him to a shocking next to last position in the standings. None of the brilliance we expected from him has shown itself here.

Loyce Keyon and Thalia Goglia both had a rough pair of races as Women’s Europe competition got under way. Neither had a great result today, but we do expect Keyon to improve and prove her world class status in the event.

ASMV Continues to Excell in Sailing/Women's Volleyball

This is Bryce Favre reporting live from Tyrellia, Casari.

Once again the swimming world was fortunate not to surrender all the medals to ASMV athletes as we declined to send swimmers to the Ylompic games. This was to allow other nations to collect some medals instead of see them all go to us.

Rowing did not see domination from ASMV either today. This was only due to the entire field of today’s events moving directly into the semifinals. We expect the domination to occur in that round.

In Sailing, we did have a busy day. In the men’s Finn event Rob Conell finished 2nd in race 5 and won race 6 as he moved up the rankings into the third position. After two mid-pack finishes from Alvaro Coranza, he sits in mid-pack of the standings.

Laser saw Yanike Pauluoss finish 3rd in race 3 while Delsie Rothgaber struggled. The struggles wore off on Pauluoss and both finished poorly in race 4. That dropped the two down a bit into 5th and 6th positions.

Women’s Europe got underway with Ja Faylor finishing 3rd in race 1. But is was Twanda Olsin who set the pace in race 2 as Faylor finished 5th. Faylor sits in 3rd position with Olsin in 6th.

49er racing began as well with Ellaina Bradbury and Payne Harfeldt not faring extremely well. They currently rank 4th out of six teams.

The ASMV softball team could not duplicate its Game 1 success and a rather lackluster loss of 3-0 to Rejistania was the result today. The team now sits 1-1.

Men’s Handball continued to be unkind for ASMV as the dropped another game. This time 29-20 to Kelse.

Women’s Volleyball now has only 2 undefeated teams. We happen to be one of them after a 20-25, 25-2, 8-25, 25-4, 15-11 defeat of Bequeleria. Kelse is the other unbeaten.

Women’s Beach Volleyball saw ASMV2 lose to Schiavonia 21-5, 18-21, 15-6
While ASMV 1 easily handled Rejistania 21-18, 21-2

And that concludes our Ylompic report for today. See you all again tomorrow.

GOLD for Kansu Syku

Kansu Syku won the Ylompic 100m backstroke competition, by this winning the first gold medal for the rejistanian Ylompic team. Her teammate Syku Kansu finished third, while the second place was taken by Biddy Lytle of Bedistan. Only 5 hundredths of a second separated the first from the third place. Syku Kansu replied to the question wether she was disappointed to finish third: "I can not say I am, it was so close, it was more luck than anything. Congrats to Kansu for having more luck than me!" Kansu Syku told about her victory like this: "This was pretty extreme, I knew I had a good run, but I had no idea at all which position I finished. I looked to the board, but at that time, it like so was a problem to read it. I mean, I am not dumb, I just learned the Latin alphabet in my youth and rarely used it, add the emotional state and you get an idea why it was a problem. Then I realized I was first and ... Couldn't believe it!"

In other competitions, the rejistani swimmers were successfull as well: Ltara Jen reached silver in the 200m Butterfly competition. The Isesi finished after the Anastasianan Nora Falk and before Anna Utterström of the same country. In the Freestyle competition over 200 metres, Siki Hatime was slightly unlucky: She finished just fractions of a second lather than Noémi Levi of the communistic country Ariddia. Siki Hatime had bad luck in the 100m Freestyle competition. After finishing first in the heats, she failed to qualify quite embarrassingly in the semifinal. She laconically said: "Others were better!"



Rejistanians impress in (most) team sports

The different teams, who compete in the sign of the XkeLiKo impressed by winning. The only exception being the female beach volleyball team. The Rejistanian softball team defeated Andossa Si Mitrin Vega mainly due to their karelan defense by a 3:0. The rejistanian Lasane is leading the group table with 2 wins. The male handball team as well proved its class by a 16-goal win over Schiavonia, the score was 38:22. The Schiavone attacks far too often ended in the hands of goalie Lyku Syku. The Ly'he twins not only confused the opponent, but were both able to score several times, however not surprisingly Ka~nsu Sulny, who plays for a team which translated means 'attacking party/list of candidates' scored most.
Andossa Si Mitrin Vega had few problems with defeating the Rejistanian beach volleyball team with an embarrassing 21-18, 21-2. After a promising start, the rejistanians constantly worsened and deserved their loss (even though maybe not in this height).

ALLAN3A G3TS PWN3D
Article from Gamer’s Weekly, Allanea

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Joshua Reed,
Gamer’s Weekly

A lot of new events over the past few hours, but nothing in which Ariddia is taking part. The ever-popular women’s beach volleyball is underway, but the first day was a bye-day for Wiya Uo and Laetitia Alvarez, meaning spectators will still have to wait a while before seeing the Ariddian ladies wearing the national colours transmuted into skimpy outfits.

It has been rumoured that a Casari magazine has approached Wiya Uo, and asked her to pose for a detachable poster in their magazine, under the headline ‘Island Beauty from the Tropics’. Ms. Uo has, it seems, declined.

In similar news, an Ariddian male teenager was found wandering round the Ylompic Village, near the quarters of the Spruitland delegation. Upon his being detained, he was found to have in his possession a poster-sized, glossed photograph of Spruitland athletes Sofie Leckerding and Kelly Van Houdt playing beach volleyball, topless and with their team’s colours painted over their breasts.

“I just wanted to get their autograph,” the young man said sadly, as he was firmly escorted back off the premises.

*Opening music plays and camera zooms in on two commentators*

"Good day Algal states and welcome to ASTV Sportsdesk, today brought to you live from the Ylompics in Tyrellia, Casari. I'm Mike Deveau."
"and I’m Lisa D'eon, so Mike how did our fine athletes do today?"
"Well Lisa, the day started off great in swimming with Algal States winning its second medal of the games in the mens' 100m Breaststroke where David Smith won a silver medal, he followed that up by qualifying for the final in the 100m Butterfly and another chance at a medal. He also just missed qualifying for the 200m Breaststroke, where along with Alan Deveau they finished 9th and 10th. On the womens' side we have Jessica Foote, who already has a bronze medal, qualifying for the final in the 100m Freestyle."
"That's great Mike, two medals already, and in a sport where Algal States wasn't expecting any due to the fact that most people in the country don't swim just a 100m or so but normally much more."
"yup, the team is overjoyed. Anyways I hear there was no rowing to report today Lisa, but that you did take in the sailing out on the bay. How did it go?"
"That's right Mike, It was an exciting day for the sailing team where starting with the mens' Finn class, Malcolm Masters was able to put together two strong races and finished in 4th and 3rd and finds himself solidly in the middle of the pack after 6 races. In the laser class Jack Cooper had a great day, putting together two solid 2nd place finishes and finding himself leading the field after 4 races. On the Womens side, the Europe class got under way and Gail Mackay finds herself with a share of the lead after two excellent races where she finished 2nd and 3rd, team mate Elisabeth Sutherland is in the middle of the pack after her decent finishes. How are the team sports going Mike?"
"Well Lisa, only the women's beach volleyball teams were in action and the results were mixed with the second team winning their match over Collonie-1 with scores of 21-9 and 21-6. The womens's world class first team of sisters Allie and Kelly Thibault lost in a tough match against Spruitland in a match that almost didn't happen because the Spruitland duo was late and was about to forfeit but showed up just in time to play. There was some talk about whether or not their showing up late was just a ploy to throw their opponents off their game, but whether it was or not we'll never know, but if it was it certainly worked."
"That was very interesting Mike, lets hope that the rest of the matches are more routine than that. Well that was Day 4 at the Ylompics for Algal States' delegation. Stay tuned tomorrow for more swimming, rowing, sailing and mens' football and water polo action. As always I’m Lisa D'eon."
"and I’m Mike Deveau. Long live the dichotomy!"
"The Great Dichotomy!" signed off Lisa.

"And...we're out." signalled a technician.
"So Lisa, do you think they bought that we were there for real?" said Mike standing up to walk away from the green screen.
"Whether or not they did is irrelevant, there's not much we can do about it. Besides we will be there in a couple of days anyway when YOU get your passport." chastised Lisa.
"Yeah, Yeah, anyways you don't have to keep reminding me how stupid it was to apply for a passport two days before we were due to travel to the games but I guess your right and I was just curious." replied Mike.
"Fine, see you here tomorrow"
"you too." said Mike.

The Schiavone Scribe
Fancy A Brew?

After looking like nothing special so far at the Tyrellia Ylompics, Schiavonia finally struck gold as Queenie Brewster rode away to glory

Spruitland's Oprah Peesgong had been leading thew event from the very early stages, recording a time of 30:35.41. And there she stayed until, with just two riders left to finish, our Queenie came along and snatched the glory by three seconds at the death.

"Wow! Even I was surprised!" said Queenie after her last ditch win, "Because Operah is a great athlete, and she put in a great performance."

Elsewhere, Schiavonia played like Schiavones should. Far too relaxed. We lost at all kinds of things, and sucked at others. But no-one seemed that bothered. Yay!


Nation G S B T
The Kazoo Peoples 2 2 0 4
Spruitland 2 1 1 4
Rejistania 1 2 2 5
Anastasiania 1 0 1 2
Casari 1 0 1 2
Starblaydia 1 0 1 2
Ariddia 1 0 0 1
Milchama 1 0 0 1
Schiavonia 1 0 0 1
Bedistan 0 3 2 5
Algal States 0 1 1 2
Chicanada 0 1 1 2
Uhuh-Topia 0 1 0 1

Capital District Standard

Day 4 Recap at the 1934 Summer Ylompics

Cycling

Another womens competition, another surprise medal. Sarah Finnegan, defending Tour de Cana champion but runner up in the Summer Expor qualifiers, surged past the field to snatch a bronze medal in the Womens Time Trial. Finnegan, going second-to-last, shaved almost ten seconds off of Casari's Mindy Almonte to jump into Third Place and saw the final racer not keeping up, meaning that the Kodiak Nation scored its second medal of the Ylompics in an event that no one really expected medals in.

Lana Schmith scored an impressive finish, as she took 8th place in the run, an inprovement for her considering her average run on time trials on similar courses are a minute slowers. She finished a half-minute behind Finnegan.

Rowing

The row team scored more advancement thanks to low numbers, allowing the team to rest some more and get more runs in. Yizpli Olax will row tommorow in the repechages for single and double skulls, hoping to improve in his rather crappy performance in the qualifying runs.

Sovboda Cycles To Gold, Starblaydi First
Richter Runs (Swims) Riot With Two Medals
Gymnastic Choke in Team Competition, sixth of six teams

These were the headlines as Midday of Day 5 of the Tyrellian Ylompic Games saw the sun shine high over Casari.

Starblaydia had won their first medal, Randy Richter in the two-hundred metre Butterfly at the Aquatic Centre. Twenty-four hours after recieving his bronze in the two-hundred, Randy took to the shorter Butterfly even - the 100m - and powered his way down the lanes to second place and a silver medal. He's proved himself during these games as one of the best swimmers in the world at this stroke, and he still has participation in two team swim events, the 4x100 metres relay and medley. Hopefully Randy's performances will help to drive on his teammates during the Games, particularly in and around the water.

Starblaydia had been hoping for a handful of medals of various colours in the pool, but out on the 151 and a quarter mile-long route of the Men's Road Race in the Cycling, they'd never dreamed of what they got.

Juan Svoboda, Starblaydia's newest superstar, destroyed the field with a lead of over three minutes over his nearest competitor, dragging Phillip Greenfield up to fifth along with him.

"There were all sorts of tactics going on in that leading pack," Juan said afterwards, "and I just knew I could go faster. I looked across at Greeney and he knew what I was going to do. He nodded and I just started pedalling faster. That's the simple way to win gold, I think. Go faster than the rest."

Simplicity itself. 'Going faster', however, certainly isn't the way to win Gold in the Gymnastics, as Starblaydia's women found out today. They seemed nervous after their incredible qualification for the Team competition, as well as many individuals making it to their specialist events. The team were brought back down to earth, however, with a harsh bump as they couldnt even match their qualification score and finished bottom of the six team Final pool.

SILVER for Trapper!

The men’s Time Trial was the last road cycling event of this Ylompics, and the last chance for the Spruitland men to get a medal where the women had already gotten two. Walter Kippel was our main hope for gold, but Walter; like Valerie Platt yesterday, was not yet fully recovered from the road race and came up just a bit short of the medals, in fifth place.

Luckily, there was Stijn Trapper, normally a specialist of the shorter distances with his main event being the 1000 meter Time Trial on the track, later in the competition. But Stijn proved he can handle the longer distances as well, ending less than half a second behind home-rider Martin Bowler to take the silver, and effectively save face for the men’s road cycling team.

“Yeah, them chicks been teasing us,” Stijn said, “waving their gold and silver in front of our noses. I showed them though. I made a bet with Oprah that I’d win a medal. I’m-a get laid tonight!”

Trapper’s silver puts the medal count for cycling ahead of swimming again as well, though it could have gone very differently today. Four Spruitlanders were competing in three swimming finals, and while two fourth and two fifth places make for a solid overall performance, Spruitland spectators were left slightly disappointed, and rightly so. Laticia Van Bael came closest to the podium in the 100 meter Freestyle, barely 0.02 seconds away from bronze.

The men’s 100 meter Freestyle will be one of the main medal events tomorrow, and 200 meter gold medal winner Dorsey Anijs will be the focus of our attention. Dorsey looked a bit shaky in the pool tonight though, barely managing to qualify for the semi final, but he clocked the 3rd time in the semis to make it to the final eight.

“The heats were a bit early in the morning,” Dorsey explained his inconsistency. “I had to shake off my party legs. I always do better a bit later in the day.”

Dalia Hammel and Marleen Kuykenberg will be swimming for a medal as well, tomorrow, and both will hope to do better than in their previous final appearances. Marleen in particular, with two 4th place finishes so far, will have her heart set on a medal.

Other stuff

Sailing, then. Lien Van Thiel still going strong in the Europe class, with two top four finishes to stay in the lead after day 2. We’re still expecting her to scew up, though. Nonkula and Planck are still as inconsistent as ever in the Women’s 470, but so is everyone else in that class, it seems, so even though the two Spruitland sailers are currently in 6th place, they’re only 1 point away from silver and 5 from gold.

Slow day otherwise, with only the male ping pong players seeing some action today, and both of them moving on to the next round. Jolly good, but a long way to go before we’ll get really interested.

Right then. Sadly, there’ll be no cycling for the next three days, so we’ll have to hope for our athletes in other sports to strike lucky and keep our medal count up. More specifically, our eyes will be on the swimmers, since those are the only medals being awarded for the next three days. Well, there’s some gymnastics as well, but obviously nobody cares about that.

Day 3: "Better Luck Next Year" Common Theme

Men's 100m Breaststroke
Stamper Stomps Competition

"Eh, I'm pleased that I did so well," said Stamper, after edging Algal states' David Smith by a margin of .17 seconds. "And hey, I'll get a K$50,000 bonus for getting a gold. It helps us in the medals standings, too."


Stuart Stamper TKP 0:59.24 GOLD
David Smith ALG 0:59.41 SILVER
Mathew Hauer CAS 0:59.59 BRONZE
5 others

Women's 100m Backstroke

Kansu Syku REJ 0:59.50 GOLD
Biddy Lytle BDS 0:59.52 SILVER
Syku Kansu REJ 0:59.55 BRONZE
Corrine Keown MIL 0:59.84
Alejandra Paoletti TKP 0:59.99
3 others

"I knew I wasn't a threat, but it's nice that I finished within a half second from gold. I just know that I'll have to be that much better, be it at the First Summer Olympics, or the Second Ylompics. We'll just have to see," said Paoletti via the telephone.


Women's 200m Butterfly


Nora Falk ANA 2:05.38 GOLD
Ltara Jen REJ 2:05.65 SILVER
Anna Utterström ANA 2:05.72 BRONZE
Dona Heinecke TKP 2:06.03
4 others
"I improved my time by .12 seconds, and that was only after one race. So if I make 6 more races with that much improvement, I'll be sure to take the gold next time!" exclaimed a hopful Dona Heinecke at a press conference held later in the day.


W 200m Freestyle
From First to Worst

Noémi Levi ARI 1:56.55 GOLD
Siki Hatime REJ 1:56.65 SILVER
Gina Korintjes SPR 1:57.29 BRONZE
Carol Gale ARI 1:57.40
Ireen Arcadia UUT 1:57.93
Alexandra Diern MAC 1:57.94
Jessica Rubik UUT 1:57.99
Maricela Horman TKP 1:58.24
"I'm disappointed in performance. I didn't make my best effort, and I truly paid. I thought 'You know, I have this one in the bag," and I relaxed way too much. Well, beginner's mistake, right? We'll see what happens next time," explained Maricela Horman, who was first in the semifinal with a time of 1:56.63, about one and a half seconds better than her finals time.


Women's Time Trial
Queenie Brewster SCH 30:32.01 GOLD
Oprah Peesgong SPR 30:35.41 SILVER
Sarah Finnegan CHI 30:36.34 BRONZE
...
Tanisha Dannenberg TKP 30:55.25 (5th)


"The thing about a time trial is that you have no idea how you are doing. People sometimes pass you and you pass them, but really you're oblivious to the whole thing. Either that or I have a bad coach. We did well, we'll do better next time," said an exhausted Tanisha Dannenberg after the race.

Men's 100m Butterfly
0 for 3

Randy Richter STB 50.45 Q
Ila Kansu REJ 50.46 Q
Larry LaPlanza STB 50.54 Q
Paul Miller ANA 50.57 Q
David Smith ALG 50.60 Q
Lyku I Adil REJ 50.67 Q
Joel Timmons BDS 50.68 Q
Carolus Hiern MAC 50.72 Q
...
Vince Duke TKP 50.86 (10th)
Brock Ramey TKP 50.89 (11th)
...
Jacob Saunders TKP 51.34 (18th)

"Well, I'm disappointed. We've done well up until this point in swimming, but things change, ya know?" said Mike Phelps, Kazoo Swimming Coach.

Men's 200m Breaststroke

Sven Ejeborg ANA 1:09.54 Q
Mather Hauer CAS 1:09.62 Q
Darius Klodden SPR 1:09.63 Q
Peter Bolan ANA 1:09.75 Q
Emeterio van Booven TKP 1:09.78 Q
Ila Kansu REJ 1:10.05 Q
Kevin Lee STB 1:10.16 Q
Jacob Mitchell BDS 1:10.27 Q
...
Dennis Cullen TKP 1:10.89 (12th)
Dorian Gagnon TKP 1:10.96 (13th)
5 others

The only qualifier was Emeterio van Booven. The chanting of the crowd emphasized the syllables of his last name: "Go van Boooooo-ven! Go van Boooo-ven!"

Women's 100m Freestyle
Heats

Siki Hatime REJ 53.51 Q
Jessica Foote ALG 53.53 Q
Nicole Theriault ALG 53.64 Q
Maj Vikhaga ANA 53.70 Q
Laticia Van Bael SPR 53.74 Q
Carol Gale ARI 53.75 Q
Nina Pumpido KRY 53.78 Q
Sharlene Saleta BDS 53.78 Q
Edda Linder MIL 53.80 Q
Jessica Rubik UUT 53.86 Q
Monica Gaskins BDS 53.91 Q
Kam Abelar MIL 53.91 Q
Pheobe Buitendam UUT 53.93 Q
Díana Zarb MAC 54.02 Q
Noémi Levi ARI 54.05 Q
Carole Neville ANA 54.05 Q
Ireen Arcadia UUT 54.20
Sofia Bardsley TKP 54.22

W 200m Backstroke
.02 makes difference

Jill Bolland ANA 2:06.75 Q
Kansu Rei REJ 2:06.96 Q
Marleen Kuykenberg SPR 2:07.32 Q
Alejandra Azkarata BDS 2:07.37 Q
Andrea Carter ANA 2:07.54 Q
Latil Syku REJ 2:07.56 Q
Viola Kerstens SPR 2:07.77 Q
Altha Maclaine MIL 2:08.22 Q
Elnora Grandberry TKP 2:08.24

Grandberry missed qualification for the final by 0.02 seconds. A tearful Grandberry said after the results were announced, "I tried my best, and it wasn't good enough."

Nation G S B T
The Kazoo Peoples 2 2 0 4
Spruitland 2 1 1 4
Rejistania 1 2 2 5
Starblaydia 1 0 1 2
Casari 1 0 1 2
Anastasiania 1 0 1 2
Milchama 1 0 0 1
Ariddia 1 0 0 1
Schiavonia 1 0 0 1
Bedistan 0 3 2 5
Chicanada 0 1 1 2
Uhuh-Topia 0 1 0 1
Algal States 0 1 1 2

Little Action Allows Athletes to Frolick

Dorian & Sonya Ylompic Day 5 Report

Day 5 of the Ylompic games was once again slow for the athletes of Dorian and Sonya. Rather than report to you tons of news that does not apply to our great Kingdom, we will fill you in on the events of the day from our own athletes.

The track & field competitiors took the day off from practice and instead decided to relax on the beach. Luigi Bouchaert and Wes Aylock spent the day parasailing. Evelina Panah spent the day trying to instill some sense of femininity into women’s hammer competitor Candie Nachmias. In Evelina’s words “It is quite a shame to waste a name like Candie on a woman who prefers to look more like a man.”

Sherrell Gavinski, Iesha Mcgaffey, and Jenell Brdar spent the day pouring through the shops in downtown Tyrellia. We can not speculate on how much money they spent, but it did take 6 porters to carry in the bags.

Rolf Andrades spent the day in making sand castles with local kids. Unfortunately for Rolf, he fell asleep and was buried except for his head which now sports one hell of a sunburn. Birgit Hamontree was later seen rubbing some lotion on the burn.

The Archery and fencing teams did not take the day off from practice - they rarely do. In fact, one of the practice sessions got a bit out of hand as teammates had to restrain Milan Glowski and Benton Coachys. Team sources say the fierce competition is not unusual between the two.

Santo Gbur, 50m freestyle swimmer, was seen bungie jumping while Carletta Blyze, Equestrian, was reported to have gone hang gliding.

Now to the sports we competed in for the day:

Sailing
Deangelo Cacibauda turned in the 5th fastest time in the men’s single skulls event repechage with a time of 6:37.44. Ayana Leasher finished last in the same event for the women.

Loyce Keyon was a surprising 1st in race four of the Europe class event while Thalia Goglia finished 5th in the same race. That leaves the two in 11th and 12th respectively.

Tune in tomorrow for more Dorian and Sonya Ylompic News.

ASMV Hoops Dominates

This is Bryce Favre reporting live from Tyrellia, Casari with all your ASMV Ylompic News.

Sailing again dominated the day for ASMV athletes. While the hoops teams and some rowing also saw action.

In rowing, Marlin Lupardis had a disappointing time of 6:42.35 in the repachage for men’s single skulls.
Deadra Izard performed better in the women’s event with a time of 7:12.09

Sailing again saw a ton of action so let’s catch up with that. In the Europe race 3 Ja Faylor and Twanda Olsin finished 5th and 6th, but race 4 saw both struggle as they finished further down the table. Today’s results have Ja in 3rd overall while Twanda sits in the 5th spot.

Yanike Pauluoss and Delsie Rothgaber both had rough days in Laser races 5 & 6. Yanike dropped to 5th in the standings while Delsie holds down the 7th position.

Ellaina Bradbury and Payne Harfeldt finished an impressive second in the 49er race 3 but fell apart in race 4. The combined result drops the pair to the 5th spot.

The men’s 470 event continued with races 5 &6. Alvaro Caranza and Rob Conell had decent races and still hold onto the 3rd position overall. Twanda Olsin and Ja Faylor dropped to 5th in the standings following race 6 where it seemed the pair was completely exhausted.

Men’s Basketball was witness to a great game in the form of Bedistan edging Starblaydia 95-94. The ASMV vs. Bequeleria game was not nearly as great a game - unless you are an ASMV fan. The blue and yellow cruised to a very easy 108-59 victory that saw extensive time for the bench players in the second half. The Women’s Hoops team was almost as impressive as the men as they handed the hosts a 80-55 thrashing.

The women who did not make the softball team and decided to give cricket a shot now wish they had just stayed home. Casari beat them by 5 wickets and dropped the team to 0-2.

“Ridiculous!” Carlo Quickenberg was fuming. He slammed the morning edition of the Spruitland Sports Gazette down on the table, and kicked a chair through the room.

“Dude, will you chill out!” Timothy Bleeck was trying to calm his friend, but not succeeding very well.

“Did you see that?” Carlo continued, pointing at the paper. “Did you? One friggin’ sentence! One! There’s a whole page about cycling!”

“Well, we won a medal in that, so…”

“So what? They didn’t even mention our names, for crying out loud!”

“True,” Timothy conceded.

“And that Kazoo dude you beat was one of the gold medal favorites! One of the best table tennissers in the world, and you beat him in a friggin’ spec-ta-cu-lar seven set thriller! And all we get is ‘the ping pong players move on to the next round’!”

Timothy sighed. He knew Carlo had a point, of course, but what could you do? No sense in getting all worked up about it. “It’ll get better,” he said. “There’s no cycling for the next few days, so if we continue to play well…”

“…we may get two sentences? Hah! We have to do something spectacular, draw the attention of the press! Put table tennis on the board, you know?” He started pacing the room.

“More spectacular than beating Li Taylor in seven sets? That’s not gonna be easy.”

“I’ve got it!” Carlo jumped up, grabbed Timothy by the shoulders. “We’ll play today’s matches in the nude!”

Timothy pushed him away. “Dude, are you out of your mind? You really shouldn’t hit the bong before you’ve at least had some breakfast, you know! Speaking of which…” He turned to leave the room.

“I’m serious, Tim! Look at those beach volley bitches! They’ve been doing interviews and photo shoots and signing endorsement deals non stop since their match!”

“That’s different!”

“How so? Why can’t we have the same thing?”

“Because they have nice tits, you nitwit! If we show up in the nude, we’re just gonna be pummeled on by security and tossed in the slammer. But you do what you want, I’m going down for breakfast.”

He left, shaking his head. Carlo started pacing the room again. He knew Tim was right, of course. But there had to be something, a bit less drastic, he could do to draw some attention. He played with a few ideas in his head. None were perfect, but he was running out of time, so he settled for the one he thought was the best.

He snuck into the room of Greet Kierbusch, Spruitland’s female table tennis player. Luckily, Greet was the sloppy type, so he quickly found what he needed.

Two hours later, Carlo Quickenberg arrived at the Lesari Fieldhouse for his Second Round table tennis match, proudly wearing a triple-D bra on his head.

OOC: "Hetaki: Inki~l" is a typo, it is "Hetaki Inki~l"

Top of the standings

The Rejistanian Ylompic team managed to defend the position as the first in the medal ranking by winning 3 medal today. Of course, the most important competition was the women's gymnastics team competition. Here the Rejistanis reached a second place after the communists of Ariddia. Ikaru Kanehiju reached a 9.991 in the Vault-part, could in total however not reach Sehedemenele Juru's and Jenji Kekehirisana's total of each over 39 points. Best individual score was reached by Anaïs Reed of Ariddia, while April Smithson and Jenji Kekehirisana were below her in the rating. Ikaru Kanehiju later commented on her top performance: "It just was my day... I mean, you can train only to a certain point, the rest is the situation, the psyche, the help of the Gods, today that was in my favor."

In other news, Ila Kansu and Anastasianian Sven Ejeborg caused a controversy without doing anything wrong: Both finished the 200m Breaststroke in nearly exactly the same time. they both finished within the same hundredth of a second. The regulations were unclear about this and eventually it was agreed to award gold to both swimmers and not to award silver. Ila Kansu, who was milliseconds slower later commented: "It was kinda strange... I knew I did well, but then there were this whole line of discussion and... I am glad that it was decided like this, because come on, it'd be ridiculous otherwise!"

The other swimmers were not as successfull: Lyku I Adil finished third in the 100m Butterfly competition, while the others failed to finish within the first three.

In Rowing Itikemelara Iuliana qualified in the repechage, or as rejistanians would translate it "hope competition" in Men's Single Skulls competition. In the women's competition of that sport, Hetaki Inki~l qualified. No Rejistani qualified in the first qualifier. Most of the Rejistanian media wasn't aware that there were actually rejistanian participants in this sport.

"Slani!" was the main reaction when the Ylompic Orange-Blues failed to impress against Starblaydia and lost 1:2. Lyku Imdila scored the goal against the Stars. However the Sikenian goalie looked not very well at the shots of Keifner'he and Ajaccio'he.

The male basketball team defeated Milchama by a close 72:69. The match was a close affair where the lead changed within minutes. In the last seconds of the match, Sala Teke scored the winning three points.

OOC: I assume “Benjamin Nash” of “SAA” is actually Benjamin Eash of SNA? Also, I’m assuming the women’s gymnastics’ team competition was indeed a medal event. It’s listed as such, but medals aren’t confirmed, the overall medal table doesn’t include them either.


And we’re back, with exciting news in Tyrellia here on day 5! Several medals have once again been won. . . including a medal for Ariddia! More on that in just a moment, after a quick recap of events. . .

In swimming, you no doubt remember that no Ariddians made it to the final of the women’s 100m freestyle. There were two Uhuhland representatives, however – Ropa-Topian athletes Jessica Rubik and Phoebe Buitendam. Rubik, sadly, finished eighth, while, in an intensely close race, Buitendam missed out on a medal by just four hundredths of a second, finishing fifth. Bronze went to Anastasiania’s Maj Vikhaga, who edged out Spruitland’s Laticia Van Bael by two hundredths of a second. It was silver for Jessica Foote of the Algal States, while Krytenia’s Nina Pumpido took gold.

In the heats of the men’s freestyle events, now, Alan Heath and Brian Réveil went for the 100 metres. Both were looking to do better than they had in the 50m event. Alas, Réveil, with a time of 48.64, finished almost a second behind the fastest swimmers, and a long way off from a qualifying spot. Heath’s performance was somewhat more encouraging, as he qualified in twelfth place. Krytenian athletes earned three spots among the top six, including that of fastest qualifier with Andy Hillcrest, suggesting a very real possibility of at least one Krytenian getting onto the podium.

In the semi-finals, however, Hillcrest disappointed, as did Heath; both were eliminated, finishing fourteenth and fifteenth respectively. Pieter Vermeer of Ropa-Topia, on the other hand, snatched second place overall, suggesting the prospect of another medal for the Uhuhland nation in these Games.

In table tennis, we had three athletes competing in the singles. For the men, Xavier Baird lost to Krytenia’s Lee Green, but, in the match just after that, John Alejandro defeated Schiavonia’s Yuki Yokomuko. Faith Dallku, the only Ariddian woman taking part, also came up against a Schiavonian, Laura Pearce, and won her game in just four sets.

And the men’s football was finally underway for Ariddia today, after a previous bye-day. Living up to the expectations of many hopeful fans, and adopting the attack-focused style of the World Cup team, Ariddia defeated Milchama by three goals to two – after pleasing the fans by performing the traditional ulek war dance.

Finally, all Ariddian eyes were of course on the women’s team competition in gymnastics, where our six girls, after finishing first in the qualifying round, were going for gold. Anaïs Reed was awarded 9.964 points for her achievement in the vault event, while Sunny Mokhobo’s beautiful performance on the uneven bars earned her a 9.983. Athletes from other nations also did well, Kelsian gymnast Gia Valetto’s performance in the floor exercise being rewarded with a score of 9.987 – almost perfect. But the best result was achieved by Rejistania’s Ikaru Kanehiju, who vaulted her way to a score of 9.991, less than a hundredth of a point from perfection.

Against these amazingly skilled athletes, however, the Ariddian ladies pulled through to take gold, to their absolute delight.

“It’s incredible!” Hope Mathijsen gushed, proudly wearing her hard-earned gold medal. “I can’t really believe it yet. I think it’ll sink in over the next day or two. . . and by then of course there’ll be the individual events to work on!”

Disappointment continues for Games’ tiniest delegation

After Sabrina Vannucci’s poor performance in the pool, San Adriano’s only other athlete, Benjamin Eash, made his Ylompic debut today in table tennis, going up against Aaron Wrenn of Starblaydia. Determined to perform well, Eash held his own, albeit with increasing difficulty, until, ultimately outclassed, he succumbed in seven sets.

“I thought for a while that I really could win it,” he said afterwards. “I’m not too unhappy, though. My opponent pushed me hard, made me put everything I had into this, and I didn’t do too badly.”

Still, many in San Adriano would have been hoping for a win. Vannucci has, thus far, come last and last but three in swimming events while, over in the Winter Olympics, Thomas Peruzzi was disqualified in his only short track race to date. No Sanadrianese athlete has ever won a race or event, nor even qualified past the first stage.

Port James Sentinal-Telegraph-Telegram-Update-Register-Sun-Star-News-Review

Sports Section

Milchama win second medal

This Ylompics has not been particularly great for Milchama so far. With only one medal through 4 days of competition, they needed some vast improvements. Sure we didn't get any but we still got a bronze medal that's something. Besides that the Milchamians have just plained suck in competitions doing nothing good and just losing or barely qualifying and sucking in the final heat. So we really do not have much positive news to report on sorry.

Normally we would have an event by event report here but we don't think its neccesary today. sorry.

Sevens Side Hots Up
Starblaydia defeat hosts by 10

Having finished in the top four of the last three Rugby World Cups, Starblaydia are, on paper least, the favourites for the title of Ylompic Rugby Sevens Champions. And, with a Sevens team made up of the most creative and athletic members of the 15-man game's side, Starblaydia thought they could be on-course for a medal.

Starting Seven:
Name # Usual Position
Dagnir Tumunzahar 2 Hooker
Binky O'Brady 9 Scrum-Half
Magnus Khanasan 10 Fly-Half
Melchior 6 Openside Flanker
Vincenzo Verdi 7 Blindside Flanker
Rano Calamari 4 Lock
Maximillian Raffiki 12 Inside Centre

Replacements:
Antonis Lucretior 5 Lock
Septimus Furion 8 Number Eight
Rafael Jongbloed 11 Left Wing
Cam de la Huerta 15 Full-Back

Starblaydia's first match was against Collonie, a team who looked like they'd not seen a rugby ball, before. Starblaydia powered through the Collonie side over both halves of ten minutes, scoring two tries and knocking over a penalty. In response to the beating they were getting, Collonie aimed to kick for goal - when they had the ball and weren't being flattened - but it was over-zealous tackling by Starblaydia - particularly Tumunzahar and Furion - that led to Collonie knocking over two penalties. Starblaydia, however, had hardly broken a sweat.

Starblaydia 17 - 6 Collonie

Next up were the hosts, another team who kicked for goal when faced with seven angry men in white-and-purple charging towards them. Casari's team made three penalties out of five attempts, while Starblaydia were themselves forced to drop-goal their way to victory. They only managed a single try, a quick Binky 'O Brady dodge through that was quickly converted by Magnus Khanasan, but the bearded Magnus-Man was on course to try and get all the points himself as he knocked over two penalties and two drop-goals to consistently put Casari on the back foot, keeping the scoreboard ticking over.

Casari 9 -19 Starblaydia

Welcome, to the recap of the sixth day here in Tyrellia. I’m sure many of you watched live earlier today as the men of Ariddia’s gymnastics’ team tried to equal what the women achieved yesterday. Like their female counterparts, the men finished first after the qualifying stages. . . Let’s see how it went.

Ariddia’s Jang Yong-Jun set the style to beat, with a dazzlingly skilful performance all round. Jang scored over 9.9 in four out of six events, and totalled 39.561 points overall, making him unquestionably the best all-round gymnast of the competition. Even the brilliant Ka~nsu H~senu of Rejistania did not do quite as well.

Inspired by their team mate, and no doubt the skill of their female counterparts yesterday, the rest of the team performed very well, to the joy of spectators who were able to appreciate the skill of all thirty-six gymnasts involved. Such was the level of the competition, however, that the Ariddians met their match with Rejistania’s six, who won a well-deserved gold. Ariddia’s men had to make do with silver. . . which they seemed more than happy with nonetheless.

“It’s a wonderful experience just being here,” Abdel Andresen said. “And winning an Ylompic silver medal, well. . . I’m really pleased with what we’ve done today.”

Also noteworthy was the 9.999 score obtained by Moises Tonsil of Andossa Se Mitrin Vega in the floor exercises. Why exactly he was not awarded the perfect score of 10 is not yet clear; his performance seemed absolutely flawless.

And so, at this stage, Ariddia is in seventh place on the medal chart, with four medals, including the gold medals of Noémi Lévi and the women’s gymnastics team. A far better result than most Ariddians would ever have dared hope.

*tag* for Anastasiania

Source: www.sport-news.co.ut


Olympic mascot's offspring delays Ylompics news

ISLE OF UHM - The still unexplained offspring of feather-bellied Uhuh Ro-To, the official mascot for the Ropa-Topian participation in the Winter Olympics in Aeropag, escaped from a science lab several days ago. The feather-bellied frog was apparently attracted by the Internet routers of the Ropa-Topian Internet Exchange which just happens to be located in the same building, and the feather-bellied frog apparently had an appetite for fiber-optic wires. This unfortunately caused the Uhuh-Topian Sport News website to be unavailable for several days, but as you can read this now, Sport News is back to bring you the latest (and for now some old) news from Tyrellia.


Day 4 - Gold for Ariddia

TYRELLIA - Noémi Levi from Ariddia won a gold medal on day 4 of the Ylompics in the finals of 200m freestyle swimming. She did this with a time of 1:56.55. The other Ariddian swimmer, Carol Gale, was 0.85 slower, which was good for a fourth place, followed by our Ireen Arcadia with a time of 1:57.93. Jessica Rubik finished seventh, with a time of 1:57.99.
Later that day, another swimming event. In the 100m freestyle, Arcadia failed to qualify (54.20 seconds), but Rubik and Phoebe Buitendam (who didn't qualify for the finals on the 200 meters) went through to the semifinals and qualified for the finals the next day.


Day 5 - Table tennis wins overshadowed by another defeat in football

TYRELLIA - Day 5 of the Ylompics started rather quiet, with both swimmers in the finals 100m freestyle for women staying out of the top 3. Phoebe Buitendam got a fifth place, with 53.85 seconds only 0.04 seconds behind bronze medal winner Vikhaga from Anastasiania. Jessica Rubik became eighth with a time of 54.29 seconds.
The men also got to swim today, with Pieter Veerman qualifying for the finals of 100m freestyle on day 6. Jack Cuypers came as far as the semifinals, while silver medal winner on the 200m Lars Sepers didn't qualify for those either.
Table tennis players Koos Walker and Corneel Marsman both defeated their opponents, respectively Benjamin Kennedy from Ceorana and Manousákes Anatolákes from Bedistan, both in 5 sets, but this happy moment didn't last long. The victory of the table tennis players was overshadowed by the loss of the men's football team against Becquerelia with 0-2.


Day 6 - Bronze for Veerman; Klungelaer cancels press-conferences

TYRELLIA - Swimmer Pieter Veerman won bronze in the 100m freestyle finals on the 6th day of the Ylompics in Tyrellia. Most likely afraid that this might spark another discussion about whether swimming should be Ropa-Topia's national sport instead of football, Minister Klungelaer canceled all press-conferences he might have during the Ylompics. It is rumored that he was seen on the airport in Tyrellia, trying to get a flight back home to Uhuh-Ropa.

And we continue our coverage of day 6, taking you back to swimming, and this time the men’s. Alan Heath just qualified, in the heats of the 400m freestyle, while Brian Réveil unfortunately did not. In the semi-final, Heath improved on his time, and successfully qualified for his first ever Ylompic finals, after going out twice in the semis in two previous events.

The heats of the 1500m, which also took place, were the event Brian Réveil was looking forward to. In his specialty, the Ariddian qualified in a comfortable second place, a full second ahead of the third fastest, while Heath also grabbed a spot for the semis.

The women also began the 400m freestyle today, including our very own 200m gold medallist Noémi Lévi. Lévi qualified in eighth place, doing enough to get through to the next round, where she was be joined by her compatriot Carol Gale, who came ninth. Unfortunately Carol got no further this time, although Noémi will be competing in the final, and making another try for a gold medal. It was the same story in the semi-final of the 800m, with Lévi securing a spot in the final, and Gale, alas, not able to follow. All this means we now have two finals to look forward to in the pool, with Noémi Lévi competing in both, and hopefully proving a very real challenge for her opponents.

In sailing, the women’s Mistral has not yet begun, but judo has started now. Only one result so far, Rejistania’s Initeraleli Venesesekasalala defeating Anastasiania’s Per-Olof Greisz in the first round of the men’s lightweight event. We have one athlete in that event, At Suwil, and we’ll let you know of course as soon as he competes. Now… A disappointment in men’s table tennis, with John Alejandro going out to the Kazoo People’s Ben Wee-Kiong. Ben Wee-Kiong? Sounds as if he’s got two first names and no family name, but then I’m not familiar with the intricacies of Kazoo naming conventions. . . Where were we? Ah, yes. Table tennis, and Faith Dallku faired better in the women’s competition than Alejandro in the men’s, winning her second game in a row, this time against a home crowd, and Celestine Arel of Casari. A fast-paced event, table-tennis, and hopefully our only female athlete can keep it up a little longer. . . Lots of events to look forward it, in any case!

SILVER for Marleen!

With no more cycling for a while, we’ll have to count on the swimmers for the next few days to give us our daily quota of honorary metal, but so far so good. Add one more silver to Spruitland’s tally, courtesy of Marleen Kuykenberg!

And boy, are we happy for Marleen. Today’s 200 meter Breaststroke was her third final appearance of the Ylompics, and when you ended fourth in the previous two, frustration tends to build a bit.

“Yeah, it very much felt like it was now or never,” Marleen said. “Luckily, the 200 Breast is my favorite distance. I just had to… well, swim as fast as I could, really.”

There was plenty more non-final-swimming in the Aquatic Center today, to set up no less than six finals tomorrow. Unfortunately, only three Spruitland swimmers will be competing in two of those finals, with Antoine Dupin, Trinny Deloo and Vanessa Hartekus in the long distance events. We don’t care which one, as long as one of them gets a medal, we’re happy. Preferably a gold one, come to think of it, because that’s been a few days.

Other stuff

The most notable Spruitlander in any of the less prestigious events was Carlo Quickenberg, a table tennisser, who played his match with a fair-sized brassiere on his head. Mental instability seems like the most probable explanation for this disturbing behavior, which we certainly don’t condone. We might have overlooked his peculiarity had he impressed in his match and gone on to win a medal, but since he lost gloriously, we’d suggest mister Quickenberg relocate to some far away place. Hockey Canada comes to mind, where he’ll fit right in.

Our other male table tennis player, Timothy Bleeck – the one without a bra on his head – also lost gloriously, leaving us with one less event to watch. We’ll have to keep paying attention to the women’s table tennis event for a bit longer though, since Greet Kierbusch convincingly defeated her second round opponent.

Mixed results in sailing, where Lien Van Thiel finally screwed up spectacularly, but still hangs on to second place, and the men’s Finn and women’s 470 classes are getting nearer to their grand finale. Aaron Bakboordt and Nonkula/Planck are still in contention for a medal, but don’t be surprised if they still manage to screw up in their last three races.

More team sport pool play today as well, with the Water Bunnies losing 7-3 to TKP. The Wabbit-Chicks, however, are starting to convince some Spruitland male chauvinist sports fans that women and football do belong in the same sentence. They kicked some major booty with an 8-1 win over Becquerelia, a higher win than the men ever managed in five World Cup appearances.

And finally, our esteemed Minister of Sports, Olav Nett, started play in the Golf tournament today, but we’ve been informed that the results as released by Tyrellian officials most certainly contain an error, so we’re not allowed to inform you on his progress just yet. Better luck tomorrow, Mr. Nett.

ASMV Subpar Mostly. Volleyball and Softball Exceptions

This is Bryce Favre reporting live from Tyrellia, Casari.

The men’s gymnastic squad was dismal today as they finished dead last in the team competition. Figures the fairy boys would lose.

Now on to sailing where we lost ground and accomplished little more than water pollution. Ja Faylor and Twanda Olsin both managed to look like complete incompetents as the finished poorly in both races of the Europe competition. The poor results dropped Faylor to 4th and Olsin to 8th in the standings. The men’s 470 event saw the pair of Coranza/Conell show very piss poor in race 8. They still hang on to the 3rd spot in the standings but now 6 points behind Casari and 8 behind Kelse. Women’s 470 completely sucked as Olsin/Faylor dropped to a miserable 5th in the standings. Rob Conell and Alvaro Caranza each had a great and a horrible race in the Finn competition. Conell fell to 4th in the standings and Caranza is so far down the list that he cant even see the leaders.

The ASMV softball team picked up an important 3-0 win over Collonie as they improved to 2-1. All 3 runs came in the 4th inning.

The official report listed the men’s handball team as defeating Collonie 29-15 even though the standings chart still list the team at 0-2. Hmmmmmm…..Someone screwed up there.

Women’s Volleyball saw ASMV drop the first set to Starblaydia 22-25 before the team realized they were actuall playing the match and cruised through the next three sets 25-2, 25-11, 25-16. Starblaydia had hoped to fare much better after the first set, but that was not to be.

ASMV 2 showed up to play Bedistan, and except for screwing up the second set by actually doing anything, they looked completely horrid.

Well that concludes our stinky progress for today. Hope it all smells better tomorrow.

Durol Vows Not To Bathe

Dorian and Sonya Ylompic Report.

Short and sweet - But here it is.

Sailing

Women’s Europe competition saw Thalia Goglia finish 4th in race5 and we wont mention the race 6 result. Loyce Keyon finished 6th in the 6th race but race 5 was not worthy of mention. That leaves both near the bottom of the standings and the two are actually considering combining the best scores from each in a effort to place in the top5.

Len Durol, former world class Finn racer (emphasis on former), continued to stink up the competition. He has now vowed not to bathe until he climbs to at least mid pack in the standings. Other competitors are obviously upset with that thought.

It was reported that an athlete from Dorian and Sonya had won a Judo match. Unfortunately we do not have any competitors in the event. Someone close to the Dorian and Sonya delegation said that it was Durol beating up some kid for badmouthing his performance so far. It just happened to take place in the Judo facilities. At least he won something - even if it was a fight with a kid - that he almost lost.

Vannucci qualifies!

Joyful celebration erupted yesterday in the small village of San Adriano, after villagers watched live as Sanadrianese swimmer Sabrina Vannucci finished eleventh overall in the heats of the women’s four hundred metre freestyle, earning a spot in the semi-finals.

“This is wonderful!” one elated villager said happily. “No Sanadrianese has ever qualified for anything before!”

Vannucci’s mother, who was present in Tyrellia to support her daughter, cried with joy as the results came up. Previously, she had been seen shouting her support in Italian.

“I’m so proud of her!” she said tearfully. “She deserved to qualify! She’s worked so hard for this. She’s the best swimmer ever!”

Ms. Vannucci herself was looking a little overwhelmed, but very happy. She is one of only two Sanadrianese athletes in the Games, and her compatriot Benjamin Eash lost his first match in table tennis against a Starblaydi competitor. Vannucci herself failed to qualify in the heats of two other events, finishing last and last-but-three. Her qualifying to the second stage of the 400 metres is seen by villagers back home almost as if she had won the final.

“We’re very proud of our athletes,” a villager said. “I think I can safely say they’ll both get a hero’s welcome when they come home.”

School children in San Adriano have been preparing ‘welcome home and congratulations’ gifts for the two athletes – including, according to a teacher, “various decorations, a lot of drawings, and a big chocolate medal each.”

Vannucci then proceeded to finish last in the semi-final, but to most of her supporters it barely mattered. Qualifying in itself had been an amazing achievement.

San Adriano’s participation in the Ylompic Games is now almost over, with just one event left for Vannucci to compete in – the women’s 50m freestyle. The tiny nation has come nowhere close to winning a medal, but then, nobody expected them to. Once the 50m freestyle is over, Vannucci and Eash will remain in Tyrellia to take part in the Closing Ceremony. . . then they will go back to their small village, where their appearance on the world stage will not be forgotten anytime soon.

The Schiavone Scribe
A Chance To Dominate!

Yes, after looking decidedly laid back so far in the Ylompics, Schiavonia have now found something they have a chance of dominating in.

Golf!

Yes, the sport that was so infamously wiped from our shores due to an apparent lack of popularity seems to be one of our best sports here in Tyrellis, where three of the top four in the men's event are Schiavones.

To be fair, there are only six entrants, and one of those is the Minister of Sports for Spruitland, who has seemingly stuck a pin in a list of events and ended up here.

Unfortunately, it is only an exhibition sport, and with such a low turn out, it could be years before it makes it's NS reappearance. Which is a shame, because we're not doing to bad at it.

G S B T
Rejistania 4 3 3 10
The Kazoo Peoples 3 2 2 7
Casari 3 1 1 5
Spruitland 2 3 1 6
Anastasiania 2 1 2 5
Ariddia 2 1 1 4
Krytenia 2 0 0 2
Bedistan 1 4 5 10
Starblaydia 1 1 1 3
Milchama 1 0 1 2
The Macabees 1 0 0 1
Schiavonia 1 0 0 1
Algal States 0 3 1 4
Chicanada 0 1 1 2
Uhuh-Topia 0 1 1 2
Kelse 0 0 2 2

Gold for Syku'he and Gymnastics team

The rejistanian male gymnastics team won the gold medal. Ariddia finished behind them on the second place while Kelse became third. Ariddia's Sae Iu nearly reached a perfect score in the floor exercise: 9.998. This was however not the best individual rating in this discipline: Moises Tonsil of Andossa Si Mitrin Vega reached an unbelievable 9.999! The best Rejistani reached a rating of 9.9234. It was Kansu Jeri in the High bar competition. The most points in total were reached by Ariddian Jang Yong-Jun: 39.561.

In swimming, Kansu Syku won her second gold medal in the 100m Butterfly final. Some foreigners believe that she is in reality more than one person, who are just called Kansu Syku, which of course is untrue. The rumours were caused by the fact she had her hair cut after her first win.

In other events, the Rejistanis were not as successfull: Hana Kansu failed to qualify in the 400m Freestyle heats, Y I Je was able to squeak through and even reached the 4th place in the semifinal. Siki Hatime had quite luck to qualify for the final in the 400m Freestyle semifinal while her colleague Syku Ka~nsu failed to reach the final. In Judo, Initeraleli Venesesekasalala defeated Per-Olof Greisz of Anastasiania.

The team sports were just abysmal. The Rejistanian softall team was trashed by Milchama 0:3. The Orange-Whites, ie. the handball team lost 18:21 against Anastasiania. The other teams had the luck to have byes. Today this might have been better.

In the Allenby Technological Centre, researchers from all over Anastasiania had been trying to figure out why all attempts of outside communication had so far been futile. They'd been trying telegraph, telephone, radio, and some intrepid researchers, mostly from the Swedish and Finnish regions, had even started to make rudimentary attempts with television signals.

However, in the six years since foundation, they had been unsuccessful. News from all over the world had been flowing into Anastasianian realms, along with technology from other nations in the region. As a result, Anastasianians in principle knew how to communicate with others - however, it seemed like some magical punishment had been put on the realms to balance out the miracle of its people being saved from certain destruction.

The nation desperately wanted to see how the 376 athletes in Tyrellia were doing, and though they got news reports from other nations, the Anastasianian news reporters in Tyrellia were mysteriously barred from sending anything home. Thus, desperate means were sought.

An envoy to Rejistania had come home a week earlier, bringing with him a new machine which had the capacity to take people's minds into the multiglobal network known as the Internet. The researchers were skeptical, but having no other means of communication they eventually agreed to testing out the machine, and the Professor in Informatics at Allenby CT, Petri Mäkelä, was eventually persuaded to volunteer. Mäkelä was selected because of his familiarity with this global network, which basically amounted to half an hour at a conference in Schiavonia. Mäkelä would then be able to create files in the machine at his own discretion, and would also be able to access all other files on the Internet - though efforts with the machine at accessing these files had proved unsuccessful, it was thought that the human will combined with the electronic impulses would do the trick.

Mäkelä was now sitting in a chair with wires tied all around his body, as ready as he could be for the "uploading" (as the Rejistanian had described it).

"The machine is analysing your body, Petri," his colleague from the Informatics Department, Juhani Ryynänen, told him in Finnish. It had been agreed that the Finns would proceed with this experiment, as Ryynänen and Mäkelä were the two greatest experts, but, unfortunately, not very fluent in neither English nor Swedish.

"Analysing? For what?"

"Apparently the mind is not only a possession of the brain, but consists of all the neurons in your body working together. The machine needs to have all the information so that it can reconstruct your spirit in a way that is as similar to you as possible."

"Any ideas on when it will fin..."

The three people in the room gasped, staring at the lifeless Mäkelä. Then, as the shock subsided, they went quiet and the room was filled by the eerie whirring noises of the machine.

Five minutes later, one of them suggested it might be an idea to check the machine and see if any files had been created.

"After all, we shouldn't be expecting Mäkelä's face to suddenly appear in the monitor. He is probably just a collection of ones and zeros now," Ville Järvinen said.

Ryynänen and the third group member, Andri Pasanen, agreed grudgingly, and Järvinen started to search for files. After a few seconds, he exclaimed in joy.

"Found him?" Pasanen asked.

"Yep. He says that we should append a filename at the end of the file, and he will carry it out of the system. It has worked, apparently."

Järvinen, however, refused to be cheerful. "Now, what to tell his wife...", he muttered.

(OOC: This is just an explanatory post for why I post as Uploaded Minds. I didn't want to start a whole new thread on it, seeing as most of my RPing will be done in this thread and in the Winter Olympics thread for the time being.)

The Spruitland Minister of Sports was not a happy man. “I love it when a plan comes together,” the immortal Hannibal Smith used to say, but except for the fat cigar in his mouth, Olav Nett was nothing like Hannibal. More like Murdock.

The cigar had gone out several holes ago, but Olav had kept it in his mouth to avoid a ferocious scowl from showing on his face. It had been such a good plan too, he thought as he swung. He hit mostly dirt, but it was enough to get the ball over the edge of the sandbox and onto the green – just. That’s better, Olav snickered silently, only took me three tries this time.

A good plan, if everyone had stuck to it. He should’ve known better than to trust a politician. Olav had paid his Casaran counterpart a handsome sum of money. For nothing. He’d have to get even with that scumbag. A few hundred pounds of marihuana in the trunk of his car and an anonymous tip would do the trick, he figured.

“Don’t worry,” the scumbag had said. “Signups for golf are now closed. It’ll be between you and some dude from Bedistan.”

That would’ve ensured Olav of silver. Oh, he’d have tried for gold, of course – a few well-timed coughs and wheezes, a bit of playing around with a hand mirror, a few skimpily dressed cheerleaders at a strategic point along the course – but a silver medal would have suited Olav just fine. Well, he could forget about that, now.

The dude from Bedistan hadn’t even bothered to show up, but there were three Schiavonians and a Milchaman instead. And some dude from Collonie who he was paired up with now, and who claimed that he was the real Frankie Hanan, and all the others were named after him. Whatever. His trickery had kept Hanan’s score not too far ahead of his own, but he had no control over the two other pairs, so barring a miracle, he was effectively out of the medal race.

Six putting attempts later he was finally done. He conveniently forgot to shake Hanan’s hand, which seemed to suit the man just fine, and rushed towards the dressing room. His caddy followed him closely, as awkwardly quiet as he had been since around the second hole.

“Give me the three iron,” Olav barked as soon as the dressing room door had closed behind them. The caddy quietly obliged.

The Minister of Sports put a hand on each end of the club, raised his knee, and slammed the three iron down on it. He yelped. The club was slightly bent, nothing more.

“Should’ve used the three wood, Sir,” the caddie dryly noted. Olav shot him an evil glance.

“Oh great, now you decide to give me some advice.”

The caddy wisely retreated to a corner of the dressing room and started packing up the clubs, lest the Minister should decide to actually follow his advice and use the three wood, but on his caddy’s head instead of his own knee.

Olav decided on a somewhat more harmless course of action. He took off his fingerless leather gloves, dropped them on the floor and started jumping up and down on them. He was still doing that when the dressing room door flew open and King Alfons stormed in, promptly knocking his miter off his head.

“Jumping for joy, Olav?” Alfons asked, while swiftly putting the miter back on his head.

“Ah… not quite, Your Highness.” Olav had, of course, already wondered how His Majesty would react to his less than mediocre performance, but he hadn’t thought he’d have to face him quite so soon.

“Oh, cheer up Olav, it’s not the end of the world,” the King said genuinly, putting a hand on the Minister’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness. It doesn’t look like I can earn another medal for our fine nation,” Olav said shakily. The King snorted.

“Hah! Come now, Olav, as if anyone really expected you to. You’re a politician, not a professional level athlete. Not like me!”

The Minister of Sports internally winced at that last statement, but managed to keep a straight face. It did put his problems into perspective a bit. Being comforted by His Majesty for a crappy performance was something he could handle. Doing the opposite after the King’s participation in the marathon would be endlessly more difficult.

“And don’t worry about the press,” Alfons said, heading back towards the door. “All Spruitland newspapers will report the truth, and nothing but the truth: that your performance was marvelous, and those ahead of you in the ranking are there because of cheating, bribery, and doping.” He opened the door to leave, turned around once more.

“Oh, one more piece of advice. Eat lots of onions tonight. And stay close to your opponent tomorrow. Your farts can knock out a rhino, Olav. Use that talent!”

And with those wise words, King Alfons left the dressing room, knocking his miter off his head on the way out.

The disembodied spirit of Petri Mäkelä sped around the Internet connections of the world. His goal: Tyrellia, Casari, where the Ylompic athletes were all competing for glory. The news reports of the swimming events yesterday were probably all waiting for him, he thought with a sigh. Swimming did not interest him particularly - no controversies, boring athletes, and no elongated excitement like in cycling time trials or speed skating races.

He quickly got on to a DNS server in Schiavonia, and after a few seconds of searching his spirit arrived in Tyrellia. Then, he found his way to the Tyrellian University servers, which at first overwhelmed him with the sheer size. However, the advantage was that there were connected machines in every nook and cranny - and most of them had stored sound from the past twenty-four hours.

Mäkelä had heard stories about Spruitland table tennis players, and he knew from experience with his son Heikki, who was a capable table tennis player, that Geoff Mirfin would be the first to pounce on them. Now, just to find Geoff's voice...

Three hours later, Mäkelä sent the following conversation transcript between table tennis players Geoff Mirfin and Timothy Bleeck (Spruitland) back to Anastasiania, along with the newspaper articles about the swimming successes. He also noted that as far as he could make out, the score at this stage was three sets apiece.

---

GM: "Oi, you! See that guy over there?"

TB: "Who?"

GM: "Don't play innocent. That guy with the huge bra on his head. Looks a twit."

TB: "Oh yeah, him. Yeah."

GM: "He's your ****ing team-mate, in't he? All from the big poofy Spruitland."

TB: "Says the one coming from A-na-sta-si-a-ni-a."

GM: "What the heck's wrong with that?!"

TB: "Can't you hear it?! Sounds like a land out of some prissy fairytale."

GM: "At least we don't all act like we want to say "look at me, I'm queer" to everyone."

TB: "That'd be why you've got A-na-sta-sia-a-ni-a written all over your back, then?"

GM: "The only reason you think that's funny is cos you're high. Like everyone else in your neck of the woods."

TB: "What's wrong with a bit of dope? It's about as harmful as chocolate. And about as tasty, too. Want some?"

GM: "You teasing, cheating..." *low voice* "you sure it doesn't show through on the doping controls?"

TB: "As long as you don't eat the joint, yes."

GM: "How much?"

---

Mirfin still managed to win the match, taking the final set 11-7.

It is not typically rejistanian to be abroad for a long time. Iane~l I Kereselehini had to experience the bad thing about it: Lots and lots of people called on his cellphone when he just wanted to celebrate with the rest of the team. However his cellphone ringed constantly and everyone in his kalesa (part of the city) seemed to call separately to gratulate, to wish luck for the next events, to know how life so far away from the kalesa is. Eventually, he reacted: He switched the mailbox on and used the text: "The number you dialed is not available. Reason: The device in question was flushed down the toilet." Of course he asked someone else to say it. Then he switched the noisemaker off and partied with the rest of the team. Some hours later, coach Javi Halenti came to him and asked what he has done. The half-seleken told about his stunt with the mobile phone. Javi laughed, but told that many people called him to ask about Iane~l I Kereselehini. Javi Halenti promised to explain the kalesa'he'ny the matter. He was no seleke and so lacked the understanding for the constant communication if someone is out of scope which many seleken-rejistanis experience. On the next day, he said Iane~l I Kereselehini discretely: "I experienced many swarms of flies, but none like your kalesa!" Iane~l I Kereselehini just smiled instead of being insulted.

DAY THREE REVIEW

SWIMMING:
No finalists today, so Krytenian fans concentrating on the morning session to see if it was worth coming back later. Sarah Jacobs answered that question, winning her heat in the first round of the Women's 200m Freestyle. Danni Baxter and Kelly Southern, though, went out after disappointing performances. Jacobs couldn't replicate her morning form in the evening though, eliminated in seventh place in her semi.

ROWING:
And now to the real medal chances on the water. The Men's Single Sculls started the rowing regatta; Krytenians immediately staked their claim, with Lucas Reid and Jon Hornuss both top six in the heats. Poor James Festa got the start all wrong, but recovered well to get within two seconds of a semi. The ladies also got two into the semis; Fiona Baptiste winning her heat to qualify third fastest overall. Claire Tompkins also made it into the last twelve.

Onto the "two men in a boat" events; the Goodley brothers doing enough to qualify despite being defeated by national number twos Si Hill and David Lewison. The ladies fared less well; Batey and Nalis scraping into the semis after finishing third in their heat.

The bast chance of a medal in the lightweight events comes from Zoe Mortensen and Niamh Campbell; they posted the quickest time in the light double sculls, with Johannes and De Vries qualifying for the final as well. Just don't mention the men.

RUGBY SEVENS:
Andrew McKinnon and Ashley Tate went wild over fourteen minutes, as the Krytenians defeated Milchama by twenty to six in their opening pool match. With the All-Violets and Chicanadians also winning, it makes for a thrilling Sevens pool.

OTHER EVENTS:
The very tall Krytenians hammered Becquerelia 99-58 in the opening math of the Men's Basketball; while the Women's Football team won 3-2 in a thriller against the Schiavones. Meanwhile both Men's Beach Volleyball teams were defeated.

DAY FOUR REVIEW

SWIMMING:
At long last, a Krytenian swimmer is within one race of a medal. Nina Pumpido scraped into the 100m Freestyle final after finishing fifth in her semi; a slow second semi-final saw her scrape in as seventh fastest.

CYCLING:
Poor Ondrea Lawrence was robbed of a medal by a boiled sweet in a bizarre incident in the Women's Time Trial. Second at the halfway split, she crashed after riding over the discarded sweet on a turn, somehow managing not to seriously injure herself. Though she got back on the bike, she traipsed home a disappointing fifteenth.

CRICKET:
Andy Cozens scored a magnificent eighty-six as the Krytenians defeated Collonie by four wickets. With Schiavonia losing, the Kryties are going for a real medal chance.

OTHER EVENTS:
Krytenia's Beach Volleyball woes continue, the ladies' chances of a medal as short as their two-pieces as both pairs lost their opening games.

Short Sport
News for people with the attention span of a goldfish
brought to you by Concise News Corp.

Ylompics - day 6
Swimming: 100 meters freestyle - Bronze medal for Pieter Veerman.
Swimming: 400 meters freestyle - Pieter Veerman, Lars Sepers qualified for semifinals, but not for finals. Jack Cuypers stranded in the heats. Same for Phoebe Buitendam and Jessica Rubik. Ireen Arcadia qualified for the finals on day 7.
Table tennis - Koos Walker and Corneel Marsman both won. Spruitland athlete played with bra on head. Mieke Dawson defeated.

"Pumpido in one. Vikhaga in two. Linder in Milchama in 3. Saleta, Bedistan in four. Van Bael, the Spruit in lane 5. Foote of Algal States in six. The Topians in seven and eight."

*To your marks. BIP!*

"Great start by Saleta the favourite, Van bael going well, Pumpido is fourth about now but it's a blanket race at the moment. Vikhaga makes a move now at the top of the screen there - coming to the turn and.... Vikhaga, Van Bael and...PUMPIDO! Could this be the first Krytenian medal? Vikhaga's kicking, Pumpido's coming back, there goes the Algal swimmer as well! Nothing to chose! COME ON NINA! YOU CAN DO THIS! Coming to the finish...Oh, that's close....YEEES! GOLD FOR PUMPIDO! GOLD FOR KRYTENIA! She can't believe it, and neither can the Anastasianian; she's been knocked down to bronze!"

"So here we are then, the final of the men's one hundred metre freestyle swimming. It's Krytenia versus Starblaydia on water once more."

*To your marks. BIP*

"Hauntman gets the best start there, listen to the crowd! Osmond catching though, and here's Goodwin and Veerman too. It's there four as they come to the turn - Goodwin turns in the lead, Osmond second, Hauntman third with Veerman right on his heels. Blistering pace from Goodwin - but Osmond is catching! Everone's catching! Osmond, Goodwin, Hauntman, Veerman - who's going to get it! Will it be the two length double for Krytenia? Yes it is! Gold for Dan Osmond! Silver for Casari! and Goodwin tied up completely there - he's missed out on a medal altogether!"

"So at 350 metres, Heath of Ariddia is going great guns, neck and neck with Krytenian Pataki, the pack chasing a couple of metres behind. Pataki going for the lead, he's got a kick, Heath is matching! These two will win gold and silver, but which way will it go? Heath...Pataki...Pataki...Heath...Pataki...last ten metres! Who's got that last bit of strength?...Pataki by a nose-hair! Heath takes silver, Mulvey of Milchama the bronze! Where were the Bedistanis? Frankly, who cares?!?"

Capital District Standard

Day 7 Recap at the 1934 Summer Ylompics

Gymnastics

Lets not talk about it. The team went from medal contenders to a collapsing bunch of peoples, with the Womens Team showing signs of improvement with their Fourth Place Finish, the Mens Team collapsing and finishing last in the Finals, and Kari Elian showing rather poor form and finishing last in the Womens All Around. Thankfully for her, she did make all the event finals, giving her a shot at some make-up medal.

Rowing

Four teams made it to the finals today, as the Kodiak nation saw it's lone finalists for the Mens and Womens Double and Quad Skulls make the finals. For a nation quickly adapting, this is indeed a stroke of luck, although medal expectations are none.

Team Sports

The Mens Hockey (field) Team made their debut today, and while they took a loss, they did admirably well for a 2-1 loss to Rejistania and, should good fortune fall their way, be in the hunt for the medal round.

The Mens Water Polo Team rerounted ship and held on to beat Liverpool England 9-5, putting the Kodiaks in a tie for second and, thanks to head-to-head, in the Medal Round for the moment. They have Casari (and possible return matches) left before they know their fate, however.

However:

Milchama 14, Casari 7
Chicanada 9, Liverpool England 5

Pool B W L
Milchama 2 0
Liverpool England 1 0
Chicanada 0 1
Casari 0 2

We all notice that Chicanada should be 1-1 since their only loss was to Milchama, so we must ponder what is happening.

The Mens Rugby Team continued their pace towards a Gold in the exhibition event, getting a rather easy 17-5 victory over Collonie to keep them ahead of AO rivals Starblaydia and Krytenia.

Overall Count

Chicanada still only has two medals from Cycling - still an impressive feat for a nation not known for doing well on a bike. Hopes are high that some medals can start trickling down towards the Nations' way soon, otherwise, interest may wain and the government might start firing coaches and such.

GOLD for Deloo, SILVER for Hartekus, SILVER for Dupin!

Woohoo! Don’t you just love long article titles? We sure do, though we didn’t quite expect one of this length until day 9 or so, not on a day when we only had three athletes competing in medal events. I guess this technically isn’t a clean sweep, but it’s close enough. If only Dupin had gotten gold as well. But let’s not complain, shall we?

In fact, Antoine Dupin’s silver medal in the men’s 1500 meter Freestyle was a nice surprise for us. That just seems like an awfully long distance to swim. But Antoine just didn’t seem to get tired, he must’ve had a big bowl of Frosty’s cornflakes for breakfast.

“This is where we’d normally let today’s medal winner say a sentence or two,” our editor says. “But since we have three of them now, that would just take up too much space.”

And with the day’s medal hunger already satisfied, the domination of Trinny Deloo and Vanessa Hartekus in the women’s long distance event, the 800 meter, came as unexpected as a woman’s second orgasm. Much like many women's orgasms, the event had a false start – the first one of the Ylompics, as far as we know – but apparently the two Spruitland women weren’t bothered by that at all, taking the top two spot all “up yours, everyone else!”-like.

With only three chances for a medal today, getting three of them was certainly a reasonable average. Who’d have thought that any Spruitlander would do so well in a long distance event? This certainly seems promising for King Alfons’ performance in the marathon, later in the Games.

We’re a bit more inconsistent in the sprint distances, it seems, with only Dorsey Anijs managing to qualify for tomorrow’s 50 meter Freestyle final.

Other stuff

Quite a few fellow Spruitlanders in competition today, and most of them did quite well. Except for Lien Van Thiel in the Europe sailing class, of course. Lien, gloriously in the lead after four races, has now screwed up completely and has dropped down to sixth, most likely out of contention for a medal.

The rowers did better, with Debbie Nestman convincingly winning her semi-final in the women’s single skull, and she did it all over again a few hours later, winning the quadruple skulls semi as well – together with a few other chicks, of course. She better win a couple of medals in the finals of those events, in a day or two, or we’re gonna be really disappointed.

If you’re looking for something fun to watch while waiting for cycling to start again, several of the combat events will be contested over the next few days. Pol de Zigaer was the only Spruitland wrestler to kick butt today, and he tossed Colonie’s Frankie Hanan onto his back a few dozen times before finishing him off with a choke hold. De Zigaer was criticized for stalling the match, making it needlessly cruel on his opponent, but he shrugged it off with “just havin’ some fun.”

Our judo team kicked some major butt as well today, all six of them moving on to the semi finals – though, granted, one of them got a bye. Gella Koprolle in the women’s middleweight was particularly impressive, getting an ippon on her Krytenian opponent in twelve seconds flat. Aristide de Cromme, in the men’s middleweight, had very little trouble in his match as well, proving swiftly that being overly defensive in judo is not a good idea, as he won the match because his Rejistanian opponent got several penalties for refusing to attack.

Greet Kierbusch moves into the semi final of women’s table tennis, after a quick and easy match against a girl from Liverpool England, so she has a good chance at a medal as well. And erm, well, from what we’ve been told, our Minister of Sports also still has every chance of a medal in the Golf tournament. How about that.

No team sport action for us today. Sofie Leckerding and Kelly Van Houdt were actually on time for their beach volleyball match, all titty-painted and ready to rumble, but it turned out they had a bye-day, so they went to the mall instead, taking a good three quarters of the crowd with them.

Right then. Still no cycling tomorrow, but it won’t be much longer now. The big question will be whether we’ll be able to keep our “at least one medal every day” streak going, with only Dorsey Anijs in the 50 meter Freestyle with a chance to win one. Well, there’s Rolf Kaemerjas in the All-Around Gymnastics too, but honestly, who cares about that?

And now for some fun.

The table for the Women's Beach Volleyball.

Pool D W L
Collonie-1 0 2
Algal States-2 1 1
Schiavonia-2 1 1
Rejistania 1 1
Collonie-2 1 1
Andossa Si Mirtin Vega-1 2 0

Clearly the 0-2 Collonie-1 squad is the best of the pack while the 2-0 ASMV-1 squad has some work cut out for it. It will be an interesting pool for sure.

Hahahaha isn't that great now onto real news. We also expect this to change by the time this newspaper comes out tommorow.

Port James Sentinal-Telegraph-Telegram-Update-Register-Sun-Star-News-Miracle

Sports Section

Milchama medal again

Well yes its another medal for the Warriors as swimmer Willie Mulvey got a bronze in the 400M freestyle. This brings us to 11th place in the medal count with one gold and two bronzes. Not so good but we have a good chance tommorow as we have three people in the all around gymnastics final. Things bode well for the Warriors next week so for now we'll be content.
Now onto an event by event report:

Outside of Mulvey's bronze medal some other good things happened for the Milchamians in the pool today as our 4 by 100 M relay team qualified for finals and Stephen Magana got to the semis in the 50M relay. Eric Tarrant finished in last place out of everybody hahahaha. That was mean, we apologize. Kathryn Chinn got to finals in the Women's 50M relay. In a quick note on gymnastic Ruby Halbert did well but did not medal.

In table tennis both of our remaining women lost in quarterfinals. This means that we no longer need to care about this sport.

In golf Thomas Morrington had another excellent round getting another 70 and staying in second place. If it wasn't an exhibition sport we would expect him to medal.

Now to team sports where the baseball team won their second game this time defeating Collonie by a score of 4-2. A 2-run homerun by Michael Flinter sealed the deal for the Warriors as they romped thru the game with closer Pat Vernon nailing down the save in the end. In basketball the Giant Warriors rolled crushing the gun-nuts of Allanea 88-61. Volleyball did not go as well thoguh as the Warriors were only able to win one set off Anastasiania losing 3 sets to one. We then lost our first game in hockey losing 4-1 to Bedistan. Kelly Whantall scored the goal for the Fighters. Then things got better for the Water Warriors as they beat the hosts of this Casari 14-7 in Water Polo. This brings us to 2-0 in water polo. We then lost again in rugby and cricket no suprise. I just hope we can beat Collonie.

Collonie Report:
Collonie did alright today. They got one person into a medal event which is definite improvement. In wrestling both Frankie Hanan's lost and in rowing all of the Hanan's and Fulvia's and teams are in or near last place. This is not looking good for medals for any of them. Frankie Hanan is also in 2nd to last place in golf only ahead of Spruitland's sports director Olav Nett. Team sports is not looking much better as the only Collonian victory was over another Collonie side. At least one of the Collonie teams are in first place in women's beach volleyball. Oh yeh they lost 104-58 in basketball, ow!

“I came to bring this back,” Carlo Quickenberg said, his fingers nervously playing with the bra in his hands. Greet Kierbusch looked at him indignantly.

“Keep it,” she snickered. “Scribble your signature on it and sell it on eBay, for all I care. It’ll give you some starting cash when you move to another country.”

Carlo’s shoulders sagged. “I’m sorry,” he sighed. “For taking it, I mean. I would have asked, but…”

“But I wouldn’t have given it to you,” Greet said, turning around to indicate the conversation was over and she wanted him to leave. Carlo stepped forward, tried to hand her the bra.

“Here, it’s yours. I only borrowed it.”

“I said, keep it! Do you really think I’m ever gonna wear that thing again?”

Carlo hesitated. “Actually… that’s what I wanted to talk to you about…”

She turned around. “I beg your pardon?”

“I… I’d like you to wear it on your head for today’s match, Greet.”

For a moment she just stared at him in silence, then she shook her head in disbelief. “Have you gone absolutely bananas?!”

“Just think about it for a second!” Carlo did his best to make his voice sound reasonable. “It backfired for me because I lost my match, and now I’m the laughing stock of the nation. Which isn’t an easy thing to do, by the way. But anyway, if someone else was to do it too, someone who’d win a medal with it…”

“Out! Move it!”

“But…”

“Get the hell out of here before I strangle you with that bra!”

She was serious, Carlo could feel it. He quickly closed his mouth, nodded and retreated into the hallway. She slammed the door closed, locked it.

He sighed, looked down at the bra in his hands. Damn thing, he thought. If it hadn’t kept sliding down over his eyes he could have won his match, and he wouldn’t be in this mess. He had to find a way to make it right, though, because he really didn’t want to move to Hockey Canada…

Best day yet!
Four new medals, and a shock performance by one-legged swimmer Sandré


Welcome back, and it’s been an amazing day here in Tyrellia! Ariddia has doubled its medal tally in one day, from four to eight, and one of those medals was gold. Ariddians also performed well outside medal events; here’s an overview.

Swimming was what everyone was waiting for, and there’s been a lot of activity in the pool today. It began with the final of the men’s 400m freestyle, in which Alan Heath represented Ariddia. Supporters were hopeful rather than expectant, especially as the eight swimmers remained neck and neck throughout the race, none ever seeming to truly pull ahead. It was a tense race to watch, but Heath seemed in with a definite chance. . . and as the scores lit up he was second, behind Krytenia’s Anthony Pataki, but ahead of Milchama’s Willie Mulvey. Ariddia had a new silver medal, its second medal in swimming after Noémi Lévi’s gold for the women.

Heath barely had time to stop and breathe before competing in a second final, and this time Ariddians were eager to see him repeat his exploit. He did better, pulling ahead of Spruitlander Antoine Dupin to take the gold in the 1500m freestyle, his second medal in one day. And he could well look proud as he stood on the podium, to the sound of Dream, the Ariddian national anthem. His compatriot Brian Réveil also performed well, finishing seventh in the final, and already Day 7 was looking very good indeed for the PDSRA.

Noémi Lévi, 200m freestyle gold medallist, also competed in two finals in the pool today, but was unable to equal her earlier performance, and finished seventh in both. Still, having reached three finals and two semi-finals, she’d be justified in feeling she’s done her country proud.

In gymnastics, it was the beginning of the women’s individual events, with many Ariddians eager to see whether our ladies could do as well individually as they had collectively. Five Ariddian women had qualified for the all-around, the most from any nation, and it was felt each was a potential medallist. And the girls did not disappoint. Aliw Set finished twelfth out of twenty-four, just behind her compatriot Hope Mathijsen, eleventh. Sunny Mokhobo would have earned a place on the podium, where it not for two of her own fellow Ariddians doing better than her 39.122, and leaving her in fifth place, one hundredth of a point behind Kelse’s Amelia Ayala.

Anaïs Reed, with 39.391, finished well ahead of Ayala and claimed the bronze, while Ariddia’s fifth athlete in the event, Laure Mkrchyan, took silver. Schiavonia’s Rebecca Fuller took gold, just falling short of the 39.5 mark with 39.497. It was the first time Ariddia had two athletes on one podium, and the girls could barely hold back from grinning as they were given their medals. They had succeeded in bringing Ariddia up to joint fourth place on the medal table, or joint third depending on how you count.

In swimming again, Heath and Réveil both qualified comfortably in the heats of the men’s 50m freestyle, with Réveil finishing third fastest overall. Réveil failed to make it past the semi-finals, however, although Alan Heath qualified in third place for yet another final.

In the heats of the women’s 50m, Néomi Lévi and Carol Gale both qualified without difficulty, although the most notable achievement was that of their compatriot Mélanie Sandré. Sandré finished 23rd overall, milliseconds behind three other athletes, and just one hundredth of a second behind Spruitland’s Laticia Van Bael in 19th place. Sandré did better than seven of her competitors – a truly amazing achievement, given that she has only one leg.

Sandré’s participation in the Games had been the topic of much talk, and the only race she was scheduled to take part in had long been awaited.

“It’s incredible,” the young Ariddian said after the race, having put back on the artificial leg she had removed before competing, and wiping tears of joy from her eyes. “I’m just so happy! I wasn’t sure I had it in me, and. . . I just came here to take part. To show the world that you can be an athlete, that you can be determined and work hard and achieve something even with a disability. I. . . I thought, I really thought I’d finish last, by a long, long way. What I’ve done today. . . I. . . I just want to thank everyone who’s supported me and believed in me,” she finished, clearly overcome with emotion. “My family, most of all, but also my friends, and. . . everyone.”

“She’s the revelation of these Games,” her fellow athlete Noémi Lévi said of her seriously, but with a smile on her face. “She’s absolutely great. I admire her very much indeed.”

In the semi-final, both Lévi and Gale failed to advance, Lévi finishing ninth and missing out by just two hundredths of a second, behind Karina Meadors of Casari.

In rowing, Richard Zhaunou came seventh in the semis, four hundredths of a second from a spot in the final of the men’s single sculls. He overcame his disappointment to secure a place in the doubles’ finals, along with team mate Victor Yehiel.

After the excellent news in swimming and gymnastics, it seemed Ariddia could hardly hope for more – but they had not yet seen their judokas in action. Judo began in earnest today, with all seven Ariddian athletes competing. Minh Hai Deleclair lost to Spruitlander Jacqueline Mepterop, but it was to be the only defeat of the day as Admina Mwakingwe, Julie Lanza, At Suwil, Darren Foams, Adam Jameson and Olivier Aleksanyan all defeated their opponents in their respective categories.

“Ariddians are great at judo, and we never even knew it!” one delighted spectator exclaimed, summing up the general impression after the event.

In table-tennis, Ariddia’s men had already been eliminated, but the PDSRA’s sole female representative, Faith Dallku, won her third consecutive match, dispatching Milchama’s Darlene Holmbeck. Dallku is now in the top four, with statistically a good chance of a medal. In the men’s event, Ropa-Topians Corneel Marsman and Koos Walker were unlucky enough to have to face each other, Marsman reluctantly eliminating his own countryman.

Finally, in the women’s beach volleyball, spectators were treated to the sight of Wiya Uo and Laetitia Alvarez wearing the national colours in the form of a revealing bikini, as they took on Casari for their first match. Despite winning the second set 21-8, the scantily clad Ariddians unfortunately lost, earning no points from their first game.

At the close of day 7, Ariddia thus has a total of 8 medals, including 4 in gymnastics and 3 in swimming. We’ll be hoping for yet more medals in gymnastics, especially from the ladies, while Faith Dallku is also looking good in table tennis, Alan Heath will have another final to compete in in the swimming pool, and Ariddia’s judokas are looking in top shape.

Definitely more excitement in store over the next few days!

From the Voice of Kalisimu:

Don't talk about gymnastics

Yes, we all saw the ratings, saw the performances, there is no need to repeat it. For those who spent the day in a cave or a job without internet access, the results are on page 49 in the font "flyspeck 3" in seleken alphabet. This should ensure those who know the results can forget it more easily. If you do not know seleken, one sentence needs to suffice: "Jilih'la'slani!"

In other news, Siki Hatime won gold. We know you all do not know who Siki Hatime is so we will tell you: Siki Hatime is a female swimmer who came from Hetkali but lives since Exkola Side (=which is like the french "lyceé") in Kalisimu-Linesjanek. She participates in certain swimming events at the Ylompic and today, she won gold in the 400m Freestyle Final. If you really think we will make her the new hero of this city... you are right! She won silver in 200 metres Freestyle and gold in 400 metres. Find more information about Siki Hatime on pages 13 and 14.

Syku Soiha of the city of dirt (=KaMaRi) will surely fail to impress tommorrow. There are several reasons for this: the first is of course that he is Syku "Mjekir" (=vice) Soiha, then he finished first in the heats and in the semifinal in 50m Freestyle. This can only mean him finishing last. Simple fourth rule of chance: If things go well, they won't matter later, if things go badly, they are crucial.

Vannucci fastest qualifier

Villagers in San Adriano rejoiced openly as the nation’s only swimmer in the Ylompics completed her heat in the women’s 50m freestyle. It was the final event any Sanadrianese was taking part in for these Games, and the tiny nation’s last hope for glory. Sabrina Vannucci, in her chequered green and red swimsuit, delivered just that as she finished fastest overall qualifier – in hypothetical gold medal position.

Vannucci then went on to qualify for the final, the first time a Sanadrianese athlete has ever reached an Ylompic final.

“To be honest, no, I didn’t know whether I could do it,” a clearly excited Ms. Vannucci admitted. “But I didn’t allow myself to doubt. I just gave it my best. . . and finished first. I’ll just do the best I possibly can again in the final,” she added with a lovely smile, “and see where it gets me.”

Back in her minuscule homeland, the entire village-nation of four hundred people is abuzz with excitement. The idea of an Ylompic medal was far beyond anyone’s dreams just this morning, but now looks like a very real possibility.

Day 7 of the Ylompics, at the Arcadian Imperial Palace, Uhuh-Topia

From a balcony at the 12th floor, Emperor James the Second looked down at an angry mass of humans. James grinned, even though several of the people were carrying banners calling for government action against Casari, or even to nuke the city of Tyrellia, for transmitting two football matches everyone would rather forget all over the world. Personally James didn't give a damn about the sport, it was just a game just like all others, but he was smart enough not to mention that in public. He wouldn't be the first Emperor to be beheaded by an angry mob if he did.

He grinned because at a time like this, the people wouldn't mind a tax increase at all, as long as they were being told it would be going to the military, and in a few weeks time, they would all have forgotten about the Ylompics, and the tax increase.

James walked back inside and switched on the ultra-absurdly-large widescreen TV to catch the latest news on the Ylompics. Apparently swimmer Ireen Arcadia had finished last in the finals of the four hundred meters freestyle, so today would be another day for the Ropa-Topian Alliance without any medals. The Ropa-Topian athletes deserved better of course, but with the current situation in the streets, it was probably for the best. Too many medals might just make people forget they were angry at Casari, and sadly happy people didn't stay happy long if they were asked to pay more taxes.

The semi-finals of the 4x100 meter freestyle for men was about to start when James realized he didn't actually enjoy watching half-naked men in a swimming pool. He started changing channels until he reached one that was showing a rerun of the women's beach volleyball match of Spruitland against Algal States. That's what all Ylompic sports should be like, James thought.

Several repeats later, James decided to check how the men had done. They hadn't really done very well, finishing in a 7th place, but at least they had qualified themselves for the final tomorrow. And apparently, the heats and semi-finals of the 50m freestyle were already over too, Lars Sepers being the only one to qualify for the finals.

James was disappointed to hear the women's 4x100m semi-finals were cancelled and the athletes would move immediately to the finals, and he had to watch at least one more rerun of the volleyball match before the women's 50 meters freestyle would be on.

While he watched how only one of the three Ropa-Topian swimmers qualified herself for the finals, he pondered about reinstating the law that made being nude compulsory, but then the image of his mother on the last day that the law had been in effect returned to his mind. Maybe there should be age restrictions, James thought, but then they will probably whine about age discrimination.

James couldn't be bothered to watch judo. If it was up to him, it wouldn't be even a sport in Uhuh-Topia. Wait a minute, I am the emperor. It is up to me. He walked to his desk to get a piece of paper and write down a new law that would outlaw judo, but forgot about it when a reporter on TV announced both Ropa-Topian table tennis players would be playing each other today. That's got to be interesting to watch.

After six sets, Corneel Marsman defeated Koos Walker, and although he didn't look very happy that he had had to play against a fellow Ropa-Topian athlete, it had been a good match. A good match that was over now, and James reached for the remote again. Time for beach volleyball.

1, 2 and 3 on the Richter Scale
Randy gets third medal of third different colour

The name's Richter, Randy Richter. The man with the golden medal. And a silver one. And a bronze one too. Surely some kind of a multi-coloured Ylompic record. We already knew that he was damn good at the Butterfly, what with his bronze over two-hundred metres and silver over the one-hundred metre distance. Apparently his Freestyle stroke isn't too bad either, as being the second of four legs in the four by one-hundred metre relay.

Starblaydia's second gold of the Games was soon boosted by a second silver as Carolyn Pereira powered her way to second place in the Women's fifty metre freestyle. Carolyn, Starblaydia's only female swimmer here in Tyrellia, is also Starblaydia's first female medal-winner. The fifty metres produced, as thought, a blanket finish with only fifteen hundreths of a second between Bedistani Monica Gaskins in first and Sanadrianese Sabrina Vannucci in the eighth position.

Six Medals in the pool for Starblaydia so far, just the kind of record that had been hoped for. With a gold in the relay, however, Starblaydia really have exceeded their swimming expectations. There are two more relays to go, of course, with gold medallists of the Freestyle Andrew Goodwin, Randy Richter, Kevin Lee and Larry LaPlanza going in the medley relay, while Andrew Goodwin, Jeff Tripp, Roger Guerin and Philip Thrift go for the Men's four by two-hundred metre Freestyle.

NOTHING for Spruitland

Ah well, it was bound to happen sooner or later, and today was the most likely day for it. No medals for us today, not even a measly bronze. <insert obligatory boooooooo! aimed at Tyrellian officials here>

Our only hope today was Dorsey Anijs in the 50 meter Freestyle. Dorsey’s strongest distance is the 200 meter, where he won gold earlier this week, but he gave it his best shot in the sprint, determined to keep our nation’s medal streak going. It was a tight affair, as 50 meter events usually are, and Dorsey looked like he was about to pull it off, but he came up just short of a medal, in fourth place.

“I’m sorry,” a gutted Anijs said after the race. “I feel like I let the nation down. This was our only chance of a medal today, and I failed.”

Theoretically, we actually had another chance at a medal, since Rolf Kaemerjas was competing in the men’s Gymnastics All-Around, but obviously, as warmblooded hetero-sexual males working for a sports newspaper, we couldn’t watch that event even if we had wanted to. We got the result on paper though, and Rolf didn’t get a medal, as expected, so we can quickly forget about that and move on to more important stuff.

Such as, well, sailing, I guess. Nonkula and Planck are still in third in the women’s 470, with one race to go, but still every opportunity for them to screw it up. Lien Van Thiel actually didn’t do terrible in the Europe class today, but only a miracle in the last race tomorrow can get her into the medals. Aaron Bakboordt was all over the place as well, but somehow still managed to hold on to third place. For now, at least, watch him slip out of the medals tomorrow, for sure.

Better news in wrestling, with our two greco men both reaching the final of their weight class. So that’s two certain medals tomorrow. Granted, it wasn’t exactly a long road to the final for lightweight Philippe Goos, but hey, who cares, right? Judo will be another happy event for us tomorrow, with three certain silvers already, for all the women. All the men lost their semi finals, however, so the three of them will be fighting for bronze tomorrow.

The same goes for Greet Kierbusch in table tennis, she’ll be playing for bronze tomorrow after losing her semi final to a Casaran chick. Badminton started today as well, and to sum it up: Mark Strooyt’s out, Yasmine Steeckx is still in.

Right then, I think we’ll move swiftly past the results of the men’s golf tournament and look ahead to tomorrow. There’s a whole crapload of finals tomorrow – 35 to be exact – so we’ll be making up for our medal-less day. But all those judo and wrestling medals won’t mean nearly as much as the following words: Cycling starts again, baby!

Men's Basketball Domination

This is Bryce Favre reporting live from Tyrellia with all your Ylompic news.

Days 7

Agripinna Pedlar shocked even her teammates by qualifying for the all-around women’s gymnastics competition. Unfortunately she could provide no further shocks as she finished in 15th place. But at least she was there. Lots of athletes can’t say that. Schiavonia took the Gold while Ariddia collected the Silver and Bronze.

In the men’s single sculls rowing event semifinals, ASMV’s Ali Tyget came in second and moved on to the finals of the event. The women’s event saw Delsie Womboldt also move on as she finished with the 4th fastest time in the semis.

The men’s double scull’s event saw the team of Kallenberger/Tyget cruise to a first place finish in the semis as they prepare for a possible Gold Medal. The women’s double scull semi was also dominated by ASMV rowers as the pair of Izard/Denbo won the race by almost a full second.

The men’s and women’s quad sculls events also saw teams from ASMV finish well, as was expected. The men came in 4th and the women held down the 3rd spot.

Sailing was also underway. The Europe event saw Twanda Olsin finish second 2nd in race 7 and 3rd in race 8. Ja Faylor finished 4th and 5th in the two races as well. That result moved Faylor to 3rd in the standings. The Laser event was less kind as both ASMV competitors struggled a bit and fell to mid-table in the standings. The 470 event was Caranza/Conell but the pair do still hang on to the 3rd position in the standings with 1 race to go.

Wrestling got under way with Nikoli Malnekov defeating Enrique “No Bite” Venom of Schiavonia fairly easily.

The Basketball venue was once again witness to a complete blowout as ASMV played the backups for the entire second half in a 104-58 victory over Collonie. All we can say is OUCH! That must have hurt.

Women’s Beach Volleyball saw both ASMV teams post victories. ASMV-2 easily handled Casari 21-4, 21-7. ASMV-1 dropped the first set and then stormed back to beat Algal States 12-21,21-16,21-2

Our decrepit Cricket squad of softball rejects managed to win a game. Let me repeat that. ASMV won a cricket game. I cant believe I just reported that. Hmmmm…. Anyway it was Collonie that dropped the game by 15 runs. They must still have been feeling the effects of the Hoops result.

Wome's Basketball Domination

And now on to Day 8.

Nolan Butkowski and Moises Tonsil ( Hmmmm.. Butkowski and Tonsil - I never thought about that one before) did not fair very well in the men’s gymnastics all-around competition. It was Rejistania with a medal sweep. Nothing else to say. Butkowski and Tonsil……………………….

Rowing. Today sucked. The reason why - Elsayed/Reddinger did not move on in the men’s coxless pairs semi. Butkowski, Tonsil, and Coxless pairs. Hmmm……Sorry about that. The women’s coxless pairs fared a bit better as Tanzer/Mannan were not in great form but managed to qualify anyway. The men’s coxless fours semi saw ASMV finish a strong race in second position. Men’s eights and women’s eights saw subpar performances from the ASMV squads earn them positions in the next round.

Sailing.
In the 470 event races 9 & 10, Olsin/Faylor had mixed results, but the second place race 10 result was not enough to move them into medal contention with one race remaining. Yanike Pauluoss and Delsie Rothgaber continued their slide down the Laser standings with poor results in races 9 & 10. Neither is likely to earn a medal here. Europe class event is a sailing bright spot. Ja Faylor won race 10 and now sits in 2nd position with just one race remaining. This should be a medal, we just have to wait and see what color. Rob Conell and Alvaro Caranza struggled in the Finn races today. 1 race remains and 4 points stand between Conell and a medal in the event. Perhaps.

ASMV wrestling surprised everyone today as lightweight Juno Kane defeated one of the many Frankie Hanans of Collonie. He might have been at the basketball game as well. Middleweight Maurice Thibadeaux defeated Henry Hoover of Schiavonia. Heavy weight Nikoli Malnekov lost against Steve Marriner of Anastasiania.

The softball team continued in a win one-lose one trend and dropped the game today against Casari 3-1.

ASMV Basketball domination continued. This time the victim was the women’s team from Anastasiania who fell 90-65 to the women in blue and yellow.

The men’s Beach Volleyball teams followed the day 7 example that the women set and both earned victories. ASMV-1 downed Casari while ASMV-2 easily handled Krytenia.

Downwind of Durol Becoming Deadly

Dorian and Sonya Ylompic Day 7 & 8

Day7
50m Freestyle swimming was blessed to see D&S swimmer Lucius Medure earn a qualification spot in the event. But the blessing for all would end as he lost in the semis of the event. Neither of the D&S women in the 50m freestyle event could bestow a blessing as they both finished way in the back of the standings.

Deangelo Cacibauda watched a great race in the men’s single scull semis. He had the beast seat in the house, from a scull located in last place. Hetchman /Mcclaim didn’t follow Cacibauda’s example, but didn’t qualify anyway. They missed the final spot by a meager .22 seconds.

Europe sailing saw Loyce Keyon and Thalia Goglia in action. And that about says it all. They were there - that’s it.

Day 8
Sailing Europe races 9 and 10 were run today. Thalia Goglia screwed up by actually finishing third in race 9 and then punished herself by finishing last in race 10. Typical.

In more important news to everyone involved, Finn competitor Len Dural is now on his 3rd non-bathing day as he continued to stink up the event in more ways than one. Jose Sonero of Kelse was quoted as saying Durol was the reason he finished well in race 9. “in race 10 I was unfortunate enough to stay down wind of him” he went on to say.

Liverpool England Chef-de-Mission slams Spruitland
The Liverpool England Chef-de-Mission to the Tyrellian Ylompics has slammed recent media comments reportedly made by the Spruitland camp over failing to win medals.

Zhi Han Cavonneci, a Chinese-Italian ethic mix, and Liverpool England Ambassador to the United Nations (via Crna Gora Liv Eng), slammed reports, complaining that "we're a great sporting nation, but have failed to medal here at the Ylompics. Spruitland should be happy to have medalled."

Swept

The Rejistanian nation has regained their pride after a disastrous performance in the women's individual all-around. The male team did not let the hopes down but overachieved in a spectacular way: the first four places were won by rejistanis. Iane~l I Kereselehini won gold by a 0.6768 point difference to the second place, Ka~nsu H~senu silver, Kansu Jeri bronze and Hsene Seta~o "plate" (as rejistanis call it if an athlete finishes fourth). "Disappointment" was Xtesa Rimati~l who finished 9th and had the worst rating for a rejistanian. Xianuve Ateok~hana ended on seventh position. Iane~l I Kereselehini had the best marks for a single performance: he reached a 9.9978 mark on the rings. His comment was: "Today was pretty incredible. We all worked very hard for this and then everything worked out far better than expected." Xtesa Rimati~l was of course disappointed but not too much: "Of course I hoped to perform better, but at least there were others winning for Rejistania."

The day did not start particularly well for Carlo Quickenberg as he left his room for breakfast. Someone had tied another bra to his doorknob. This one was black lace, one of the better quality ones he had received over the past days. He tossed it into a corner of his room, onto a pile of about a dozen others, closed the door and sighed. This stuff was getting a bit old.

The few people in the hallway quickly took off in different directions when they saw him. Carlo sighed again. Everyone had been avoiding him like the plague. He suddenly didn’t feel up to finding an empty table in some isolated corner to have his breakfast while everybody stared at him and whispered behind his back, so he decided to leave the compound. He’d get a hotdog from one of the stands near the stadium, or something.

As he passed the last door before the one leading towards the stairway, he heard someone sobbing. He stopped, put his ear a bit closer to the door, heard it again. Carlo stood for a few seconds, then decided it was probably best to just move along, but then the sobbing turned into a wail. He knocked quietly and opened the door.

It was a broom closet. The sobbing came from a man – though Carlo wasn’t sure for a moment, the pink bathrobe threw him off – who was sitting on the floor, his knees pulled up against his chest. He looked up when the door opened, briefly, then continued the sobbing.

“Someone took off with your clothes?” Carlo guessed. He looked around the empty hallway. “Coast’s clear. You can come out, nobody will see you in that silly thing.”

The sobbing stopped instantly. “This is a Versaci robe! It costs more than you make in a month!”

Carlo recognized the dude now, sorta. That gymnast dude… What was his name…

“Rolf, right?” It was a half-guess.

Rolf Kaemerjas’ face cleared up a bit. “At least someone knows who I am,” he sighed.

That struck a chord with Carlo. He sat down on the floor beside Rolf. “What do you mean?”

“Nevermind,” Rolf sighed, but the tone of his voice said ‘gimme a second’, so Carlo waited. Rolf dug a laced handkerchief out of his robe’s chest pocket and blew his nose.

“Did you see that?” He pointed at a newspaper by his feet. Carlo hadn’t seen today’s paper yet. Rolf almost burst into tears again, but he pulled himself together enough to speak.

“They don’t care,” he sobbed. “Nobody cares!” He blew his nose again. “I did great yesterday! A splendid performance! I was fifth – fifth! The first non-Rejistani, and those boys are just… divine! If not for that slip up on the high bar, I’d have gotten a medal. Not that it matters, they still wouldn’t care…”

He burst into tears again. Carlo awkwardly put his arm around his shoulder. Rolf buried his face against Carlo’s chest and sobbed quietly, his body shaking like a leaf.

“Now now,” Carlo said, glancing around the hallway, praying that nobody walked in on them. He patted the gymnast on the back. “It’ll be alright.”

He knew how the guy felt. Kinda. It was the same situation he had been in, really. Except that he hadn’t been anywhere near fifth place, but still. If it wasn’t cycling, the Spruitland press didn’t care much.

He looked at the top of Rolf’s head, felt a slight pang of quilt, but quickly surpressed it. He waited a few more sobs, then said: “I can help you, Rolf.”

Rolf looked up. “Really? How?”

“You’ve got more events coming up, right? More chances of a medal?”

“Tomorrow, yes. So?”

Carlo reached inside his jacket pocket, pulled out Greet Kierbusch’s bra. “Here, wear this on your head for your finals. It’ll –”

“You!!” Rolf jumped up, backed away from Carlo. “I recognize you! You’re that… freak!”

“Now hang on just a –”

“Stay away from me! Help!!” Rolf’s robe fell open as he tried to back away further. He noticed it, shrieked wildly. A few doors started to open down the hallway. People came out, and saw that table tennis dude with a bra in his hand, cornering a crying, half-naked man in a pink bathrobe into a broom closet. It did not look good.

One of the weightlifters started to hurry closer. Carlo cursed, took off running. As he jumped down the stairs, three steps at a time, what little was left of his self-esteem plummeted rapidly. Even the rejects were rejecting him now.

In the shadow of the victory

While everyone was looking at gymnastics, other events were not really a success: Lyku Laxtu and Etali~n Nana lost in Judo in the lightweight class, Ikaril Deija in the heavyheight. Only male judoka Initeraleli Venesesekasalala defended the rejistanian honour and defeated the Spruitlander Staf 't Verschot. Since the reporter who knows anything about Judo called in sick and we do not want to be buried in letters to the editor pointing out our mistakes, we can not report about Venesesekasalala'he's fight.

The female rejistani basketball team defeated Allanea by a 96:64 score. It was quite remarkable how the rejistanis used their technique and compensated for their lacking height. the smallest Allanean was 2 centimetres bigger than the tallest Rejistani. Team member Ila Iles commented: "it's not a question of height, well not only. We were quicker and threw more exact, that kind-of made the difference."

The Ylompic Orange-Blues won against Bedistan with a takilan 4:1. The Rejistanis once again played as if there is no tomorrow and as if they are payed by the mount of goals scored. The temple of karela forbid to watch the ylompic matches due to the sheer amount of takilaness involved. The Bedistanis took the lead within the first minute after Tommy Bob Valentín stormed forward and caught goalie Hanju Sinimene by surprise. Later the Sikenian had the luck that the goalposts deflected 2 dangerous shots. Kansu I Jen equalized the score in the tenth minute. The SLS R-an Lyku Imdila took the lead in the 30th minute, capitalizing one of the many defensive mistakes of Bedistan. In the 42nd and 56th minute, the Orange-Blues increased the lead, by a freekick and a counter-attack.

The Rejistanian men's beach Volleyball team defeated Algal States in 2 sets by a clear 21-8, 21-2. Unfortunately we can not report about it because our female reporter did not notice much of the match because she was busy staring at the ass of player Teke I Ha~e.

Mixed results, but no medal

Day 8 was not to bring the four medals yesterday did, but it did bring satisfaction for Ariddian supporters nonetheless.

Not in swimming, though. Alan Heath finished sixth in the final of the men’s 50m freestyle, failing in his attempt to secure a third Ylompic medal. The gold went to Krytenian Andy Hillcrest, while an Uhuhlander at least took bronze – Lars Sepers of Ropa-Topia.

In gymnastics, the men had hoped to emulate their female counterparts, but it was to be an all-Rejistanian show, with Rejistanians finishing first, second, third, fourth, seventh and ninth, leaving few places for anyone else. Ariddia’s best performance came from Jang Yong-Jun, who finished eleventh with a score of 58.1783.

Meanwhile, Ariddians went on discovering they had some quite remarkable judokas, sparking a new nationwide interest in the sport. Admina Mwakingwe defeated Rejistania’s Etali~n Nana, and is now guaranteed at least a silver medal in the women’s lightweight category. Julie Lanza lost to Spruitland’s Gella Koprolle in the middleweight, but will still be in the fight for bronze, facing Ropa-Topia’s Saskia Verhaegen.

In the men’s competition, luck of the draw proved unlucky indeed for Ariddians, as it pitted compatriots At Suwil and Darren Foams against each other. Suwil defeated his fellow Ariddian, and will now be facing Initeraleli Venesesekasalala of Rejistania for gold. Foams can still secure bronze if he beats Staf 't Verschot of Spruitland.

“We were hoping this wouldn’t happen,” Suwil said somewhat uncomfortably. “Neither of us came here to compete against our own countrymen. Still, it’s the rules of the game. Darren fought well, and I wish him the best of luck for bronze. Hopefully we can both still get onto the podium.”

In the middleweight category, there were also two Ariddians in contention, but fortunately they did not have to face each other. Adam Jameson defeated Aristide De Cromme of Spruitland, while Olivier Aleksanyan won his match against Krytenia’s Jonas Shimizu. Jameson and Aleksanyan will now play against each other in an all-Ariddian final.

Badminton began today, a fairly popular sport in Ariddia, and Ned Feeney faced Bedistan’s Norman Hackett. The first set was well-balanced, with Feeney just losing out by 10 points to 15. The Ariddian dominated the second set, winning by an impressive 15 to 1. The tie-breaker, however, saw Hackett muster his skill and defeat his opponent 15-4, winning the game.

Ariddia’s female competitor in the singles, Amina Mba, fared significantly better, overcoming Schiavonia’s Allison Allinson in just two sets, 15-7, 15-9. This has prompted some to say that Ariddia’s women overall seem to be doing much better than the men – be it in badminton, gymnastics, or table-tennis. In the latter sport, the only remaining Ariddian is also a woman, Faith Dallku. She won her fourth match in a row, this time against Bedistani Demi Antonu, to earn a place in the final. Dallku’s performance has been masterful so far, but she will now have to face possibly her most dangerous opponent - Delma Kitzmiller, of Casari. Neither woman will want to give up the gold after coming so far, which means their final match should be interesting indeed.

In football, the men won their second game, beating the Macabees by two goals to one. The Ariddians, as always, performed the ulek at the start of the match, to the bemusement of some Tyrellian spectators still unfamiliar with the ritual. “Still, it seems to be helping them win,” one spectator noted, intrigued.

Finally, in beach volleyball, Fabian Mendez and Ish Aeu were defeated by Starblaydia, 11-21, 21-10, 15-12. The two men are the only team in their pool to have not yet won a match, and it appears Ariddians, both men and women, still have a long way to go before equalling the best in this field. Not everyone was disappointed, though. “Yes, I know they’ve lost,” one female supporter said of the men’s team, grinning. “But it doesn’t really matter. They’re gorgeous to look at, even if they do lose.”

San Adriano’s participation ends

San Adriano’s participation in the Ylompic Games ended today, as Sabrina Vannucci took to the pool for her final race, in the 50m freestyle. Vannucci had by that point gathered significant support from spectators of various nations, apparently eager to cheer on the underdog. One female fan held up a sign which read, in broken Italian, ‘Sabrina, we love you, I want to have your babies!’

In her now familiar green and red swimsuit, the fairly tall, dark-haired Sanadrianese swam a fast race, keeping up with her opponents until the end. All eight athletes remained neck-and-neck, but the scoreboard eventually indicated Vannucci had come last, fifteen hundredths of a second behind the new Ylompic Champion, Monica Gaskins of Bedistan. San Adriano’s last hopes for a medal had been dashed, but few would have expected the young lady to qualify, let alone go all the way to the final.

“I can’t say I’m unhappy with my performance,” Vannucci said simply, smiling.

Spectators will not be seeing Sanadrianese athletes again in these Games until the Closing Ceremony, in which both Vannucci and her compatriot Benjamin Eash will be taking part.

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Sports Section

Milchama get another gold

With today being a holiday in Milchama for our first ever qualification into the World Cup, many people sat down to watch some Ylompics. The first event they saw was not great as our "World Class" men's swim team finished last in the finals of the event. Then the second event came on TV, the women's 4x100 meter relay. I'll let David Dario pick it up from here,

"Abbott starts fast furious near first place but the Bedistani's also right with her followed closely by the Casarans then the Kazoos. The first turn now and Milchama still in the lead as Abbott makes her way back in the pool but the Bedistanis are right with her as Gaskins comes on strong. Now we're onto the second leg as Kathrin Chinn takes up the race. The Milchamians still in first now wait they've drop backed to second now third now second again and they're back in first no second no first no third no wait second. This is a close race as everybody trying to jockey for position. Chinn on the turn in second moves into the first then back into second and now into first again. She stays first as Abby Lindner dives into the pool. Lindner now trying to extend the lead but she's being overtaken by the Bedistanis. Saleta moves forward ahead of Lindner who's desperately trying to keep pace and now right on her tail comes the Casarans with Winnie in the pool. Lindner able to hold off Winnie on the turn as she comes back to the diving board for the final leg of this race. The Bedistanis have extended their league to half a second as Kim Abelar jumps into the pool. Abelar now trying to get back for the Bedistanis and she is making progress on Alvaresa. Abelar about less than a second back as they head to the final turn. Abelar now continues to gain! Alvaresa trying to hold her off, they're at the finish and ABELAR HAS DONE IT!!!!!!!! She's beaten Alvaresa by 1/100th of second in the final leg of the women's 4x100 relay and brought home gold for the Milchamians.

Now onto the rest of the events. Kathryn Chinn, probably tired out after her performance in the relay finished 4th in the women's 50m freestyle. She tied a Bedistani but she clearly was faster. The gymnastics all around was an utter failure for the Milchamians. With 3 competitors many expected us to make some noise and maybe make a run for the medal but all 3 Milchamians were last with 2 events to go and only a great routine on the highbar by Sam Burch saved us from utter embarassment. That brings us to 2 golds and 2 bronzes for this Ylompics. We definitely need improvements in the medal count and the sooner the better.

In golf Thomas Morrington fell into third place after a 71. He is currently tied with a Schiavone and one point back of the second place Schiavone. With one round to go he could definitely get second place but he needs to get under a 70 which he has not done so far this tournament.

Now to team sports. The Milchama Warriors softball team beat the Collonians 4-3. Kelly Windash got a grandslam in the 5th to provide the run support that Jennie Fach needed for the victory. Then in women's basketball the Warriors won again this time beating the Casarans 66-55. This win improves their record to 1-1 and puts them in third place in their pool. The men had a day off in soccer which is unfortunate considering we are about to crush all opposition. The Milchamian Water Fighters advanced in Water Polo with a 3-0 after a 23-8 win over Casari. The Water Fighters have the only unbeaten record in pool play and are looking for gold. The semi finals are next for our women's water polo team. Finally we lost in cricket again, this time to Anastasiania.

Collonie Report: Our Collonian "friends" seem to be improving as both the men and women reached the final of the the team Coxless rowing. Both in men's fours and eights the Hanans failed. The Fulvias also failed in women's 8 rowing. Collonie is one of two nations not to have a medal yet in this Ylompics. Sailing is also not going well for the Eagles as all Frankie Hanan's and Maurine Fulvia's are in last place, second to last place or third to last place. Both Collonian competitors lost in light weight wrestling but one did advance in middleweight wrestling. Now to team sports where the Collonians not only lost to the Milchamians in softball but they also got crushed by the Bedistanis in basketball. Beach volleyball also did not pose well for them as both sides lost. On the plus side the tables are now correct for beach volleyball. The Collonie women's water polo squad also lost to Bedistan to bring their final record in pool play to 0-3. Finally the Collonians also lost in cricket. They are as pathetic as we are at cricket, although we fully expect to beat them.

DAY EIGHT

*To your marks. BIP!*

"Great start by Hillcrest, but they're all together in this fifty metres freestyle. Sepers of Uhuh-topia just in front, Hillcreat and the Casaran chasing, still all eight in it and here comes the kick! Last twenty metres and Hillcrest pushes! Strite pushes! It's going to be a blanket finish...and....I don't wanna call that one! Hillcrest may have just got that, Strite was right with him, but it will be a photo for that - Sepers I think has the bronze, just waiting for official confirmation."

"What a race, Ryan, a fingertip seperated first from last as with any good fifty free."

"Indeed, Chris. Here comes the official result...and they've called a dead heat! Gold for Hillcrest of Krytenia! Gold for Casari and Strite! And Sepers does get the bronze - but that's Krytenia's fourth gold in the pool! Astonishing!"

-----

"Twenty seconds left now, Malik needs a big throw against his Casaran opponent to stay in with this one. Good defending, Snee trying to keep his.....WOW! Where did that come from! Waza-ari from Malik - can he keep his head? Clock running down - that's matte for the last time and Oscar Malik will have at least a silver from these games!"

BDRL-TV Channel 16 News at Eleven - Doctor's Landing, Koveria, Bedistan

Rebecca: "And now we go to Ryan Mulford with sports. Ryan?"

Ryan: "Well, Rebecca, as always the topic of late is the Ylompics in Tyrellia. And Day Eight was quite a good one for all the Bedistanis involved, with one notable exception that I'll come to in a bit. First, swimming. Bedistani swimmers had an opportunity at three medals today, one in the women's 4x100m freestyle and two in the women's 50. The 4x100 was an unusually close race the whole way through, though for a while the Bedistani team of Monica Gaskins, Livvy Crow, Sharlene Saleta, and Antónia Alvaresa managed to open up a sizable lead. Alvaresa, unfortunately, couldn't quite hold on long enough and she was passed at the very end by Milchama's Kim Abelar, but the Bedistanis finished just one-hundredth of a second later to scoop the silver.

"Meanwhile, in the women's 50m freestyle, two Bedistanis made the final, Monica Gaskins and Sharlene Saleta. Gaskins was one of the favorites for the gold medal, and she delivered with her time of 24.17 seconds. Bedistan almost picked up a second medal in that event, but Saleta just missed out and managed a still-strong fourth-place finish.

"In other events, today marked the start of the long-awaited badminton. Three Bedistanis in each of the men's and women's singles, and all six of them advanced to their respective quarterfinals today, downing competitors from five different nations. And in table tennis, Woodrow Witherspoon has now guaranteed himself at least a silver medal after defeating Krytenia's Matrin Baggaley in today's semifinal. On the women's side, Demi Antonu wasn't quite as lucky as she suffered her first defeat against Ariddia's Faith Dallku, but she'll still have a shot at the bronze tomorrow.

"Finally, the team sports - basketball and beach volleyball went well, as our women's basketball team achieved a solid 86-65 victory over Collonie, and our men's beach volleyballers were also victorious over a Krytenian team. Alas, despite our big 16-6 victory over Collonie in women's water polo, our team will not be advancing to the next round, having won just one game out of three.

"But it wasn't all good news today, as our men's football team, of all things, was summarily trounced. Worst of all, their 4-1 defeat came at the hands of Rejistania, where until recently scoring a goal was a punishable offense. The Bedistani coach was unavailable for comment after the match.

"So we'll take a quick break, and when we come back, a look ahead to the 2094 Bedistan Premier League season and, of course, World Cup 27."

GOLD for Verbiest, GOLD for De Zigaer, GOLD for Mepterop, GOLD for Koprolle, SILVER for Broes, SILVER for Nestman, SILVER for Nonkula/Plack, SILVER for Goos, SILVER for Treckx, BRONZE for Bakboordt, BRONZE for ‘t Verschot, BRONZE for De Cromme!

Help, we’re running out of ink here! What a title! What a day!

Let’s start off with a little message for the Liverpool England official who was kind enough to criticize our unhappiness about the lack of honorary metal yesterday: Up Yours! Now read our title again! We’re happy today! Thank you very much.

Busy day in Tyrellia today, with lots of events, and more events, and then some more events, and medal ceremonies, and national anthems, and bloody hell, we didn’t know who to cheer for first, we were doing that great.

Did you hear about the new Aluminum medals for 4th place, by the way? What the hell is that all about? Normally we’d say, stick’m where the sun don’t shine, but since it appears no less than eleven of our athletes received one of those things, our official position is now: great initiative!

Alright then, where to start? Cycling, of course. The Velodrome opened its doors for the first track cycling events today, and this is where we hope to get a fair share of our medals. And we’re certainly setting the pace well. Matthieu Verbiest is the new Ylompic champion in the 1000 meter Time Trial, and Suzanne Broes got a silver in the women’s 500 meter. Oh, and Rik Steenberg got one of those new aluminum things as well. Good for him, he can hang it on the rear view mirror of his car as a constant reminder that he should’ve pedaled just a little bit faster.

Let’s skip the aluminum medals for today though, we’ll have plenty of real ones to go through. In rowing, for instance, not exactly a discipline we were expecting much in, but heck, we’ll take it. Debbie Nestman gave us another silver in the single skulls, for which we’re very grateful, even though we can’t spend more than a sentence on it.

Moving on to sailing. We were expecting the worst for our three sailers on their final run today, but things actually went quite well. Well, Lien Van Thiel only got 4th place, but she was pretty much out of contention anyway. But the other two did surprisingly well. Aaron Bakboordt did just enough to hold on to the bronze medal, and Nonkula and Planck in the Women’s 470 sailed their best race of the competition to snatch the silver at the very end.

Right, so that’s… five medals so far. And then we got a whole crapload in the combat events, which is quite extraordinary, since Spruitlanders are peace loving people who are generally too lazy to get up and punch someone in the face.

Philippe Goos gave us a silver and Pol de Zigaer a gold medal in greco roman wrestling, and we absolutely cleaned house in judo. Especially the women, where only Barbara Treckx failed to win her gold medal match in the heavyweight class, but if you ever run into Gella Koprolle or Jacqueline Mepterop, beware, because they’re the current Ylompic champions in flipping you onto your back. Hmm, that doesn’t sound all that bad, come to think of it. The judo men were slightly less dominant, but we still got two bronze, and who are we to complain, eh?

We had one more chance of a medal – well, two actually, but we’re not allowed to talk about Mr. Nett’s golfing handicap… or any of his other handicaps, for that matter. Greet Kierbusch had a real match on her hands, fighting it out for the bronze with some chick from Bedistan, and sadly losing it in seven sets.

But still, four gold, five silver and three bronze medals today, that’s twelve, more than doubling our medal total. That’s one hell of a fine Ylompic day for Spruitland. Gonna be hard to duplicate that.

There was some non-medal action as well today, we’ll sprint through it quickly. Tornado class started in sailing, Peers and Wingham are competing in that, but it’s a bit too soon to tell anything about the outcome. And in Badminton, Yasmine Steeckx moves into the semi final, bringing us one step closer to another medal.

The women’s football team played their third match of the competition today, and they take the lead in Pool D with a nice 4-1 win over Anananastasianiania. A place in the next round seems almost certain for them.

More of the same in women’s beach volley, with Sofie Leckerding and Kelly Van Houdt easily defeating an Anastasianian team, much to the delight of the – mostly male – spectators. Minor riots broke out in the crowd during that match, but nothing resulting in anything worse than a few cuts and bruises.

Plenty of action lined up for tomorrow, but very little medal-action. That is, there’ll be some finals going on, but there’s only one Spruitland athlete competing for the medals tomorrow, fencer Paula Den Dassen in the Women’s Epee Individual. Or, well, we may have a gymnast doing some stuff tomorrow as well, but we’re not sure, who keeps track of that sort of stuff anyway. It’s ok, after today our medal fever has dropped a notch or two, for a bit at least, so we’ll gladly focus on watching cycling, even if there are only qualification runs tomorrow. Until then, please sleep well, and whisper the title of this article over and over again until you pass out.

Durol Still Stinks - Now Everyone Will Know

Dorian and Sonya Ylompic review - Day 9.

Guess what Ylompics. Day 4 of the Finn event and Len Durol has still not bathed. And to make it worse, the event is over with Durol finishing next to last. The former world class Finn racer has now vowed not to bathe until after the Ylompic Games are over. That’s 14 days for those of you keeping count. If you havent been - you will be. Durol has made plans to visit every venue in Tyrellia before the end of the games. Anyone have any Febreeze?

Thalia Goglia and Loyce Keyon had normal races in the Europe finale. Bothe finished near the bottom of the standings.

The fencing and archery teams are now getting antsy and ready for some action. Word is the archery team is now taking applications from live people to be used in practice as moving targets with the fencing team ready to stop all volunteers from running away in fear. This report is purely speculation at this point, but a young man was admitted to a local hospital with an unexplained arrow wound in his backside.

Golden Day 9 For ASMV
5 Gold, 1 Silver, 4 Bronze, and an.....Aluminum???

This is Bryce Favre reporting to you from Tyrellia with Ylompic news.

Nine days. That is how long it took for ASMV to collect their first medal of these games. Then came the second, third, fourth, fif………oh hell. We will get to all that in a minute.

But first we will start out with the event finals in women’s gymnastics. Agripina Pedlar and kaitlyn Albarez were set to make some noise in the floor exercise, but that was not meant to happen. Pedlar finished a disappointing 6th while Albarez overachieved a bit to finish 11th.Ewa Skorcz barely missed an Aluminum medal. Yeah that is right - Aluminum. She finished 5th on the Uneven bars. Vault saw Pedlar and a very young Pura Peroff make the finals. Peroff looked her age as she finished near the bottom while Pedlar was 5th missing another Aluminum medal. 2 near almost medal misses. That sums up women’s gymnastics for us.

Then came the rowing events where we were expected to do very well, and we did what we were supposed to. Men’s single sculls finals saw Ali Tyger have a horrid race and finish fith. Yet another near miss on Aluminum. Then came the women’s event. Delsie Womboldt overcame a disastrous start to finish 3rd and earn ASMV it’s first medal here. Bronze was the color, but it seemed to lift a weight from the rest of the ASMV athletes.

Double sculls - double Gold. The men’s and women’s teams looked unstoppable and in top form. Hal Kallenberger and Ali Tyger cruised to a win in the men’s event finals while Deadra Izard and Francene Denbo barely edged out the Casaran team to take the gold home. For the first of 5 times on the day Ehra Tyallik Draggonnii could be heard as the ASMV flag was raised.

Quad sculls brought two more medals as the men’s team of Hal Kallenberger, Ali Tyger, Marlin Lupardus, and Bryon Venditto edged out the Krytenian team for the third ASMV rowing gold of the day. Thje women’s team of Delsie Wamboldt, Bibi Fabionar, Deadra Izard, and Francene Denbo tired at the end of the race allowing Chicanada to take home the Gold while they were left with Silver. Pura Gearon and Eufemia Shuemaker managed to get the elusive Aluminum medal in the women’s light double sculls event.

Sailing would see more medals awarded to ASMV as several events came to a close. Men’s 470 saw Alvaro Caranza and Rob Conell take home the bronze after 11 grueling races. Twanda Olsin and Ja Faylor finished 5th in the women’s 470 event. Ja Faylor surprised a lot of people by winning the bronze medal in the Europe event.

The wrestling events have brought a shock to ASMV as they collected three medals in the Greco-Roman events. Lightweight Juno Kayne and Middleweight Maurice Thibadeaux both won Gold in a bit of a surprise. Massive Nikoli Malnekov rebounded from a disappointing loss to claim bronze in the heavyweight division.

Men’s Basketball saw more domination from the Vegans as they beat Schiavonia 84-63. Rejistania continued to easily handle their opponents. ASMV vs. Rejistania looks like a very possible Gold Medal game at this point.

Men’s Handball saw ASMV defeat The Kazoo Peoples 17-13 as they evened their record at 2-2.

Women’s Beach Volleyball saw ASMV2 drop their match against Bedistan2 to fall to 1-1. ASMV1 defeated Collonie2 to move to 3-0 thus far.

And in cricket our softball rejects lost to Schiavonia by 3 wickets. The team is now 1-3 which is one win better than we thought they would do.

So let’s recap the day. 10 medals. 5 Gold. 1 Silver, 4 Bronze. And one coveted Aluminum medal that experts say will bring more on V-Bay than the Golds would.

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Sports Section

Milchama get somemore medals

Well apparently they started issuing a new medal in Ylompics today. The aluminum medal which was awarded to the fourth place finisher in all events. We have two aluminum medals right now, but on to that later. In the real events today the Milchamians did quite well as we showed our relay skill again as we became the "Ylompic Champions" in 4x200M women's freestyle. Unfortunately there were only 3 competitors so we were not awarded a medal but we do get some recognition which is always good. In women's gymnastics Nancy Winkle got our only medal as she managed to get a bronze in the uneven bars. Finally golf finished and Thomas Morrington had a great final round 66 the best score of the day and the best score in one round for the entire golf tournament to win silver. This puts us at 6 medals which is pretty close to the bottom of the medal table but we will see more results as we are going into the sports that we are good at soon.
Now to the event by event report:

All the events of swimming wrapped up and besides our medal we also had the men's 4x200m relay going. Out of a field of 5 our men finished last and were the only ones not to pick up a medal. That's pathetic they should do better.

In gymnastics the rest of our competitors did not fare as well. Wilma Tavarez finished 5th to last in the floor exercise as her she did not stick her landings to well. Then besides Nancy Winkle's bronze medal, Florence Saldivar finished midpack in the uneven due to a low degree of difficulty in her routine. Next, in the vault Saldivar finished 6th, not much else we can say her besides the other people did better than her but she tried her best and did well. Finally in the balance both Nancy Winkle and Ruby Halbert did not do that well as they finished to the second to last and midpack respectively.

Today was not a busy day for the Milchamians so now we go to team sports. In basketball the Giant Warriors fared pretty well as they beat Bedistan 81-72. Two late threes by Earl Washington seeled the deal for Milchama. The win puts Milchama at 2-2 and with an outside chance for advancement. They only have to play one more game in pool play. We had the day off in women's soccer and that kept us undeafeated in second place behind the Starblaydis who have just played more games than we have. In men's handball the Fighters beat Schiavonia 29-24. This brings our record to 2-1 and puts us in a position to advance as well. Despite no results today we are 1-1 in men's volleyball. We improved to 2-1 in men's hockey after a win over the Kazoo People's 5-3. Goals from Matt Hingen and Jimmy Ballet were key. We actually won our first game in cricket today as the our women cricketers defeated Collonie to improve to 3-1. And of course we lost in rugby.

Collonie Report: The Collonians got their first medals getting a silver and a bronze in wrestling. In one of the events they were guaranteed a bronze as both competitors in the bronze medal match were Collonian. In the other event they got a silver as Frankie Hanan lost in the final to a person from ASMV. In other sports things did not go so well for the Eagles. In rowing all their finalists lost without getting medals. The sailing events wrapped up and the Collonians were all near or at the bottom after 11 races. In golf Frankie Hanan finished next to last as he barely beat out the Spruit director of sport Olav Nett by 2 strokes. The events today put Collonie last in the medal count with two aluminums as well.

The crappy sailing continued for Collonie as both Frankie Hanan teams are in last or second to last place in the new sailing events. Collonie did win their first game in basketball as they defeated Beqrelia 78-69. They lost in women's football and in men's handball. In women's beach volleyball both Collonie teams lost to put them at a combined 1-5 in that event. In men's hockey they actually won 2-1. Frankie Hanan scored both of their goals. And of course they lost in cricket and rugby.

The entire Spruitland Ylompic delegation – save a few whose events had already been completed and had already returned home – was gathered in the mess hall of the main Spruitland compound. A few tables made up a makeshift podium, and Olav Nett, the Minister of Sports, was standing on it, all dressed up in his checkered golfing attire, not yet changed after his match.

“Can everybody hear me? Those who can’t hear me, please raise your hands.” Satisfied by the lack of response, Olav continued. “Right, we’ll let you get back to your business shortly, but there’s an important announcement first.”

Rolf Kaemerjas stood to a side. He wasn’t interested in any important annoucements. Unless a few of the Rejistanis that finished ahead of him in the All-Around Gymnastics got caught for doping, and he got a medal after all, or something, but that was unlikely.

“It seems like some of you will be getting a medal after all,” the Minister said. Rolf’s eyes widened. He moved a little closer to the podium.

“The Tyrellian official bigwigs have decided to award special ALUMINUM medals to those of you who got fourth place in their event,” Olav Nett went on. “So congratulations, and please step forward… Dorsey Anijs, for the 50 meter Freestyle…”

King Alfons climbed onto the podium with what looked like about a dozen of the new medals, losing his miter as he did so. Freestyle swimmer Dorsey Anijs picked it up and handed it back to the King, then climbed up himself. A few cameras waited politely until Alfons had re-donned his miter, then started flashing.

Rolf retreated, as inconspicuously as possible, and quickly left the mess hall. He scowled. Fourth! That just made it even worse. It put him just one spot short of the medals, instead of two, and that always made it more painful. He left the main building of the Spruitland compound, slammed the door on his way out, sucked in the hot evening air, and started walking in a random direction through the Ylompic Village. He had to clear his head, try to find his focus again before the three gymnastics finals he would be competing in tomorrow…

* * * * *

Carlo Quickenberg left the impromptu medal ceremony early as well – who cared about those silly losers medals anyway. He, too, went out of the Spruitland section and into another part of the Ylompic Village, but he didn’t run into Rolf. Carlo didn’t wander around at all - he didn’t need to clear his head, even though his doubles matches were starting tomorrow as well. But Carlo knew exactly what he wanted. He went to the Village’s central section, and purchased a polaroid camera at one of the gift shops.

Later that night, when most of the Ylompic Village was alseep, Carlo burst into into Greet Kierbusch’s room, switched on the light, and started making pictures of what he knew he’d find in bed: Greet, with his table tennis doubles partner, Timoty Bleeck. Commotion, indignation, threats of violence, but in the end it came down to one thing: Carlo now had a few pictures in which Timothy’s wife would be very interested.

A compromise was reached. In exchange for the pictures, Timothy would play with a bra on his head as well, in their doubles match tomorrow. Carlo provided him with a very nice, pink push-up-type specimen.

* * * * *

Not much later, Rolf Kaemerjas was still wandering through the Ylompic Village. Tyrellian officials weren’t really the core source of his frustration, but they had certainly grown into the focus of his anger during the night. Especially whoever the hell had decided to issue those damn aluminum medals.

Rolf had totally lost track of time, but he realized it must be close to morning when he saw a van pull up next a newspaper stand to deliver the new day’s batch of papers. The driver opened the back of the van and starting unloading stacks. He frowned when Rolf walked up and pulled a Spruitland Gazette from a stack, but didn’t say anything, continued unloading the van.

Rolf skimmed through the sports section, found the Ylompic update, and looked for news about himself. There should be something, he was one of only two Spruitland athletes competing for a medal. But there was nothing. Nothing except “we may have a gymnast doing some stuff tomorrow as well, but we’re not sure, who keeps track of that sort of stuff anyway.”

Rolf snapped. A casual observer wouldn’t have noticed it, but he did. He quietly dropped the newspaper, waited a moment until the delivery guy moved out of his way with a few more stacks of newspapers, then took a jerrycan from the back of the van. He shook it – half full, that’d do fine – and took off.

The Lesari Fieldhouse, where the Ylompic Gymnastic competitions were held, wasn’t far. His athlete’s badge easily guided him past the security guard, who noticed the jerrycan, but didn’t question it – athletes were weird people, especially gymnasts.

When Rolf ran into a Tyrellian official with a cigarette, he asked for a light. The man gave him a box of matches and hurried on his way. Ah, the irony, Rolf thought, walking across the mat on which the floor exercise was supposed to be held, casually emptying the jerrycan. When he shook the last drops out of the can and dropped it, a few people started rushing in his direction.

“My name is Rolf Kaemerjas!” he shouted, striking a match. “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”

It was not quite the best day, the clouds were dark and promised rain. Ikaru Kanehiju left the ylompic village in order to find a place where she can be alone. She hummed the tune of a sad song. She was close to crying, she failed. 9.502! It was a mistake to send me to the ylompics. She walked and walked until she heard a voice calling her: "Ikaru! Where have you been?" she realized that she went in one big circle and returned to the ylompic village. Then she saw that Y Viki called her.

"-jida, Y... I just needed some time being on my own..." she said.

"That event?" Y Viki asked, while having a basic idea of what it was, she was not able to remember the correct term.

"Yes..."

"How did you do?"

"I had a 9.502..." Ikaru then remembers that this means nothing to her. "This means I finished 13th. Only 3 athletes were behind me."

"This brought you down pretty much?"

"Yeah" She suddenly remembered that Y finished even worse and added: "Excuse my impoliteness. I shouldn't have mentioned it"

Y smiled. "Hey, not a problem, someone needs to finish last. And come on, I am sure that you did your best... didn't you?"

"I tried to, yes."

"Then you did what you can do. To be here is an achievement already."

"Of course... I just can not help thinking I could have done better, you see? I feel it was a mistake to send me to the Ylompics."

"Hey, there were many people who thought you are good enough to represent your country and since you did get past the qualifiers, you are not unworthy!"

Later Y Viki wrote in her blog about how depressed Ikaru was and asked people to send her encouraging letters. This spread through the blogosphere and people started sending Ikaru Kanehiju lots of encouraging mails, postcards and letters. Lots of rejistanis ended with "Next time surely will be better!"

Medal Rush On "Super Saturday", Day Nine

Medals, medals everywhere - mainly in the drink. The "Water Boys" and "Water Babes" of the pool and the rowing regatta made today a huge one for Krytenia.

SWIMMING

The Osmond brothers were on song today, as they edged gold from the Kazoo team in the 4x200 Metre Freestyle Relay, winning the country's fifth gold in the pool. The women's team finished third in their final, before finding out no medals would be awarded thanks to the small field.

ROWING

With participants in six of today's eight rowing finals, expectations were high for the event. The Men's Single Sculls came first; Jon Hornuss put himself in the Krytenian history books - as Darryl Soltis overtook him on the final stretch, he became the first Krytenian to win a silver medal for his country. In the ladies, however, there was Krytenian glory for Claire Tompkins. Kathy Sumara finished fourth and was rather surprised to receive what she thought to be a silver medal; on closer inspection, it was an aluminium "consolation prize" for finishing just outside the top three. It's not the winning, as they say, it's the taking part.

Andossa Se Mitrin Vega dominated the "Two Men/Women In A Boat" events, taking both double sculls title, though Hill & Lewison pushed for a silver in the men's event. It seems we were wrong about our rivals in the regatta, as it's the Vegans rather than the Starblaydis who have come up trumps - Vegan gold and Krytenian silver following in the men's Quadruple Sculls.

Finally, to cap a great day on the water, there was more Krytenian scullduggery as they sandwiched the Casaran pair with gold and bronze in the Women's Light Pairs.

JUDO

Krytenia's judoka have quietly impressed at these Games, with a few in madal chances. Jane Vinateri was one of these, as she pinned down her Rejistanian opponent for the requisite thirty seconds to take her nation's first bronze medal. Jonas Shimizu couldn't quite manage this, however he was doing well until De Cromme flipped him flat on his back - a beautiful ippon, though in the wrong direction. Oz Malik was the only gold medal hope; Donn Shearer took just forty-one seconds to take the gold - Malik still happy with silver.

Just a little unwell

The Ylompic team did not well on this day. Only the fact that from now on also the fourth place is rewarded by an aluminum medal from now on gives them some medals. Especially the gymnastic team failed to impress and only won one silver, one bronze medal and one aluminum medal: Jenji Kekehirisana won silver in the Floor Exercise, Asahelekimi Kereselehini bronze in the Balance Beam competition and Taki Likatu aluminum in the floor exercise.

The swimming team did not fail like that: there were no rejistani competitors in the current events, except for the synchronized swimming competition, which doesn't really count there. Hijat H~saldu and Kemeril Da had the second-best rating, only topped by the second rejistani team: Juru Deni and Jeriil Ve.

Judoka Etali~n Nana defeated Lyku Laxtu in the vinali tikira* in the women's lightweight competition. In heavyweight, Ikaril Deija lost her vinali tikira against Jane Vinateri of Krytenia. In the men's lightweight, Initeraleli Venesesekasalala was defeated by Ariddian At Suwil.

In Basketball, the men's team defeated the hosts by a 89:75 scoreline. It is impressive how well the basketball teams did despite the fact that basketball was illegal in the times of the government Karelan temple. The male basketball team so far is undefeated.

The good news about women's soccer is that the lasane scored three goals against Uhuh-ropia/Uhuh-topia. the bad thing is that they conceded as much and are very unlikely to qualify now.

Syku Turenu and Inkatil Nana (the female beach volleyball players) defeated the second team of Algal states by a clear 21-12, 21-2.

*vinali tikira = the match/fight for the third place, literally: replacement final.

Capital District Standard

Day 10 Recap at the 1934 Summer Ylompics

Gymnastics

No medals. All the hopes of the squads going into the finals crashed hard and often, as only two fourth place finishes (and Aluminum medals) were scored by the Kodiak squad. Expect some changes come the Summer Olympics we expect. The team is quiet for a few days during the Trampoline competition, before the Rhythmic Gymnastics competition begins. With the club considered a Gold Medal favorite, there is still hope for the gymnastics team to score a real medal.

Rowing

Capitalizing on the two Bronzes and surprising Gold scored yesterday, the Rowers added another Gold and Bronze (along with a Fourth Place) to the teams medals. Congrats are indeed in order for the Mens Quad Coxless team, as well as the Womens Eights squads, who have pretty much made all the medals for the team (5 of 7) and both Golds (for Womens Quad Sculls and Womens Eights).

The Rowers now give way to the Canoe/Kayakers, who were expected to be stronger medal contenders than the Row team. However, the Rowers showed that their relative age and experience (the sport is raltively new to Chicanada, and really only trains in the south while the Canoers and Kayakers have always excelled throughout the nation) would not hold them up from leading the Chicanadan nation. Excellent job team!

Team Sports

The teams enjoyed some time off, as the Mens Water Polo Team prep for their match with Liverpool England...and a trip to the Medal Rounds at stake. The Womens Soccer Team, winners yesterday against Arrida, only need a tie against Rejistania to make it to the Quaterfinals, although they have locked up a qualifier slot. The Mens Rugby Team rested on Matchday 4, with Starblaydia catching the leading Kodiaks with three games left. The Mens and Womens Hockey teams have been getting needed practice to prepare.

Overall Count

Chicanada has 7 lovely medals. While low on the totem pole, there is still plenty of days and chances for the team to score more success.

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Sports Section

WE LOST TO COLLONIE!!!

Yes folks I'm afraid to admit it but its true. Last night in Casari our cricket team lost to Collonie's cricket team by one wicket. This means that we have lost to OUR colony in a sport. This means that if there are not riots on the streets after you read this paper you are not a good Milchamian citizen and should be destroyed. Now that we understand that we must get good at cricket to be able to beat those Collonians in cricket. We must destroy them in cricket. All Milchamian athletes we urge you to take up cricket NOW! to beat those horrible Collonians and reclaim Milchamian pride and honor. Ok now that we're done with that rant onto the rest of the Ylompic day.
We'll have an event by event report starting with the medal events.

At least our male gymnasts aren't imcompetent as the women. Well actually they got the same amount of medals but the men qualified for more medals and got to team finals so they are clearly better. Not the point, we got another gold medal as Ed Felton had an almost perfect routine on the highbar to get the gold. He finished the best of the Four Milchamians in that event. Jimmy Dubois and Sam burch finished in 6th and 7th while Wayne Reardon finished 3rd to last. Outside of that there was not many Milchamian performances of note unless you want to talk about those who finished in last or near to last and we're sure you don't want to hear about those people, so we're not going to tell you about them. In fencing while two of our three competitors lost in the first round Charley Flare beat Benton Coachys of Dorian and Sonya in a close battle. Flare then won in the quarterfinals and lost in the semis but won the bronze medal defeating some Rejistanian. Fucking Rejistanians. Then in the women's epee the Milchamians did quite well as only one Milchamian got past the first main round again. But we're not going to blame Meredith Rotter who lost to Silvia Wentler. Wentler then beat Tabitha Deming of Casari and Kathern Loveberry of Dorian and Sonya to get to the finals where she lost to a Spruit. She almost had the Spruit but blew in the end. This puts at 9 medals with 3 gold 2 silver and 4 bronze. That also goes with 2 aluminum medals. We will continue to improve I bet.

In boxing, in typical Milchamian fashion, Jonny Dawson lost his first round match against Bert Van't Stort of Spruitland. The close 72-69 penalized Dawson for running a bit in the late rounds. The rest of our boxing competitors got byes thru today's rounds. There was also tennis today but all the Milchamians also had byes.

Team Sports: The Lady Warriors won again in softball, this time they beat ASMV 3-1. Kelly Windash was key again as she hit a 2 run homer this time to provide the run support neccesary for the Milchamians. For the tournament she has 3 homeruns and 10 RBIs. This win puts the Lady Warriors at 4 and 1 and in an excellent position to advance. Milchama also won their first women's handball game BEATING Collonie unlike our cricketers 26-19. Milchama lost in women's volleyball in a tough 5 set match against Bedistan. In the 5th set the Bedistanis got out to a big lead and the Fighters could not battle back for the win. In cricket we did not get out to play as we only got 206 for 9. This gave the Collonians a good chance. The bowlers though did well having them at 24 for 3. Unfortunately their fourth hitter, Frankie Hanan, did excellent getting a 154 with 4 6s and 8 4s. After they finally got him out that brought the Collonians to 203 for 9. Which meant that either 3 runs would be scored by the Eagles or the Milchamians would win. The first pitch by bowler Kary Finley was hit by Frankie Hanan for a 4 and a win for the Collonians by one run and one wicket.

Collonie Report: The Collonians did fine today. Right now we're waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to mad at them to actually talk about how THEY did in this column. Milchama is always better than Collonie. Go Warriors!!

“My name is Rolf Kaemerjas! I’m as mad as hell and I’m not gonna take this anymore!”

He dropped the match, a triumphant look on his face, and raised the palms of his hands towards the sky. He waited for the WOOOOSH…

…which didn’t come. Rolf looked down, and saw the match laying on the mat, harmlessly flame-less. He cursed, lowered his arms. A few Tyrellian official-looking dudes surrounded him.

“Man, you should really be careful with that stuff,” one said, sniffing the jerrycan. “This shit’s like really flammable, you know. You could’ve set the place on fire.”

“Oh, you’re a gymnast,” another said, looking at this badge. “You’re a few hours early, fella. But come on, I’ll show you to the dressing room.”

Rolf let himself be guided away. He supposed he should feel like a total loser now, but he didn’t. He was too tired to feel anything. He just wanted to sleep.

GOLD for Den Dassen!

Well whaddayaknow, a gold medal in Fencing. With only one athlete competing for a medal today (not counting the gymnast, obviously), we weren’t kinda expecting to get anything. But Paula Den Dassen brought home the bacon in the women’s Epee competition. Which is something different than the Foil competition, apparently, but we don’t seem to have our Rulebook for Obscure Sports Nobody Cares About handy, so we’ll just leave it at that.

We were all much more interested in what was going on at the Velodrome anyway. And with reason, since the Spruitland cyclists kicked some major lycra spandexed butt, baby. Rik Steenberg was the only one who failed to reach the next round, in the Individual Pursuit, out of ten cyclists/teams in qualifying today. Still a ways to go for most of the events though, except for the Keirin, of which we will see the final tomorrow. Three of the six finalists will be Spruitlanders, which assures us of a tin foil medal in advance, hurray!

Combat sports were the bulk of the other events that held our brief attention inbetween cycling events, with some of the boxing competitions starting today. Bert Van ’t Stort knocked out Jonny Dawson in the second round, though the Milchaman would later claim he passed out from Bert’s body odor. Those who ever met Bert will know the claim isn’t as ludicrous as it sounds. All of our remaining wrestling competitors move on the the semi finals as well, some on byes, some by actually having to work for it.

Good news in badminton as well, where Yasmine Steeckx, our only remaining singles competitor, ensured herself of at least a silver medal, defeating a Casaran chick in the semi finals. Nothing but air for the Spruitland Wascals today though, failing to record a single hit against the baseball team from Liverpool England. With all the parties going on in the Spruitland section of the Ylompic Village last night, that’s not a huge surprise.

More fun stuff tomorrow. We’ll be at the Velodrome of course, but perhaps we’ll keep half an eye on Yasmine’s gold medal match as well.

ATTENTION YLOMPIC HOSTS

To: Tynellia Officials at the Ylompic Games
From: Officials of the ASMV Ylompic Delegation

Dear Sirs/Madames

It appears that their have been at least two oversights today when medals for Men’s Floor Exercise Gymnastics and Men’s Eights rowing events.

Alvaro Axsom of ASMV was awarded an Aluminum medal in the Floor Exercise portion of the men’s individual gymanastic competition despite having an identical score to Santo Doulte of Kelse. We inquire as to why a double-bronze in the event was not awarded.

In men’s eights rowing our team was fortunate enough to receive the Gold while Schiavonia was handed a Silver despite the two teams finishing dead even. In all fairness to Schiavonia this should have been a double Gold.

We thank you for your attention to these matters.

More Hardware For ASMV Athletes
Some Controversy Exists

This is Bryce Favre reporting live from the Ylompic Games.

More good news in the medals department for our guys and gals in blue and yellow. We will start with the individual events in men’s gymnastics.

Kendrick Jerdon had a marvelous routine in the men’s floor exercise with a score of 9.910 which was good enough to take home the silver. The controversy in the event is where Alvaro Axsom was awarded the Aluminum medal after finishing with a score of 9.874. Anyone looking at the table will see that this is an identical score to that of Santo Doulte from Kelse who was awarded the bronze in the event. The ASMVOC will contest the results as Axsom should have been awarded a co-bronze with Doulte. We will keep you informed.

Nolan Butkowski was in action as well on the parallel bars. His score of 9.863 was good enough to bring home a bronze medal.

Butkowski and Jerdon also won silver and bronze in another event for each man. The Vault event. Butkoswki earned the silver with a score of 9.831 while Jerdon’s 9.811 earned him a bronze.

The came another Gold for ASMV. Butkowski proved what he should have in the all-around event and got the gold on the pommel horse, giving him 3 medals in 6 events. That should have translated to a better result in the all-around, but hey, he did get three medals.

Men’s coxless pairs did not see a medal for ASMV but the women made up for that as Kit Tanzer and Hue Mannan earned the Silver, just barely losing out to Starblaydia (the supposed Kings and Queens of rowing) by a mere .01. Wow that was a close finish.

Men’s Eights saw a return to Gold for the ASMV men in yet another controversial decision that gave Schiavonia the Silver even though the two teams finished dead even at 5:22.96. There should have been two teams on the Gold medal Podium. Women’s eights saw the team gather the bronze in a bit of disappointment for them. The time of 5:57.24 was a full .36 off the pace set by Chicanada.

Wrestling continued to be a big surprise for ASMV as all three women advanced ( one had a bye). Only River Tobias lost today in men’s heavyweight freestlye.

Softball and Men’s Beach Volleyball both saw ASMV teams fall apart and lose today.

GGGOOOOOOLLLDDD!!! Fencing Now Underway

And the news is…………………Uh wait ……………… ……………yeah……… ………….yeah…… ……………..GGGGOOOOOOLLLLLLDDDDDDD!!! Dorian and Sonya has a medal and on top of that - It’s Gold!!!!!! Let me say that again for all you who fell out of your chairs the first time - Dorian and Sonya has a Gold Medal!

Ok. Now back to normal for the rest of the report.

The Kingdom population has been awaiting the start of the fencing events here in the Ylompics. This is the one event where “backwards” technology has kept us sharp and in practice. We all know how to use a sword. And on the first day of fencing competition, Milan Glowski proved to the world that Dorian and Sonya are not to be trifled with when it comes to use of the blade. Men’s Epee Individual competition saw Glowski easily handle all opponents en route to the GOLD. Oh yeah. That’s GOLD baby!

Glowski’s result has earned some forgiveness for Kathern Loveberry who only performed well enough for the Aluminum medal. But did we mention - Glowski got a GOLD?

This means that every nation here will take home at least one medal. That is good news for everyone. We may have been the last to medal, but by God it’s GOLD.

Lucia Roberts' assistant sat across the table, looking at a sheet of paper. "The school gym worked out nicely. The plumbing was repaired yesterday and the rest of the Gymnastic events should go on as scheduled.

"Googh." Lucia said, her mouth full. She had to eat when she could, because honestly, someone fucked up pretty much all the time and required her attention. She swallowed and sighed. "What about that loony Spruitlander who tried to burn the stadium down? That was a close one, the place would have gone up with the water main busted like that."

"There are enough witnesses in the event staff and all those bloody cameras you had installed to get him charged, but the police seem to have something else in mind."

"Probably lining their pockets. Tell them we want a cut or all the volunteers will be mysteriously called away and we'll lose the tape, shit like that. What would they want him for anyway, he's definately a bit of a poof."

"You know the Spruits, they walk around baked. They want someone to clue them in on where the stash is so they can raid it and take a hefty bribe."

Lucia sighed. "This changed from a competiton to a laughing stock in about 18 hours. Maybe some widespread threats and random drug tests would scare them straight."

"You'd think they'd find ways to get around them. They're pretty effective junkies."

Welcome back, to a recap of the past two days of events here in Tyrellia. We’ve seen a plethora of medals, especially now that the organisers have announced the introduction of aluminium medals who athletes who finish in fourth place. Richard Zhaunou and Victor Yehiel, who would otherwise have finished without a medal, were awarded aluminium yesterday in the men’s double sculls final in rowing. They looked a little confused, but pleased. Also, cyclist Deirdre Khangal, who finished fourth in the opening event of the Games on Day 1, was retroactively awarded an aluminium medal, much to her surprise.

“I thought I’d missed out on the medals,” she said, looking rather amused. “But then I received a letter telling me I’d be getting one after all. Which is nice. Even if it’s a strange colour.”

Which makes Ms. Khangal technically the first athlete in history to have won an aluminium medal. “Not quite the way I’d have imagined going into the history books,” she said with a laugh.

The Comité Olympique Ariddien has now announced that it will recognise aluminium medals, but that they will not be counted in the official medal tally. Let’s take a closer look at these past two days.

Day 9

Ariddia’s lady gymnasts were back in action, and hoping to win at least a few more medals in the individual events. In the floor exercise, Sunny Mokhobo – nicknamed ‘Sunnk’ by her team mates, after a typo on the official scoreboard – came fifth, just missing out on one of those strange aluminium medals. After being left off the podium in that first event, the Ariddians made up for it on the uneven bars, with Anaïs Reed delivering a spectacular performance to take gold – her third Ylompic medal, and her second gold after the team competition. She then went straight on to win a fourth, bronze, in the vault event, to her delight and that of Ariddian spectators.

In judo, there was some disappointment for the women, as Julie Lanza lost her bronze medal match to Ropa-Topia’s Saskia Verhaegen in the middleweight category. She’ll take aluminium instead. Admina Mwakingwe also lost her final match, to Jacqueline Mepterop of Spruitland in the lightweight category. Mwakingwe nonetheless won silver, adding another medal to her country’s tally.

It went somewhat better for the men. Darren Foams ended up with aluminium in the lightweight, but, in the same category, At Suwil took gold against Rejistanian Initeraleli Venesesekasalala. In the middleweight category, it was an all-Ariddian final, as Adam Jameson and Olivier Aleksanyan stepped onto the top two spots of the podium. Spruitland’s Aristide De Cromme took bronze, but Ariddia had impressively snatched two gold medals in men’s judo.

Table-tennis was also a must-see event for Ariddian sports’ fans everywhere, as Faith Dallku went into an eagerly awaited final against Casari’s Delma Kitzmiller. Both women had already won four consecutive games, and Kitzmiller had the home crowd on her side, although there was a sizeable Ariddian presence to cheer Dallku on. Both athletes were in top shape, but it took Dallku only six sets to overcome her opponent and earn a new gold medal for her country. Dallku was smiling proudly as the Ariddian anthem, Dream, played for the seventh time in Tyrellia.

In badminton, Admina Mba went on playing impressively, securing a place in the semis after a resoundingly swift 15-0, 15-1 victory over an outclassed Georgie Smith of Bedistan. Mba was the day’s revelation as far as Ariddians were concerned, and many were hoping she could make it all the way to gold.

In football, the women’s team played a close, excitingly fast-paced match against Chicanada, before finally going down by three goals to four. And in women’s beach volleyball, the lovely Wiya Uo and Leatitia Alvarez lost to the Algal States. Having won the first set by 21-7, to the cheers of (mostly male) fans, they lost the next two, and have yet to win a full game.


Day 10

Today it was the men who went in for gymnastics, and the day began with excellent news as Ariddia’s Michael Gris took gold in the floor exercises, with 9.967. Nor was it to stop there as, in the next event, Sae Iu won bronze on the high bar, and Abdel Andresen took the silver on the parallel bars, just behind Rejistania’s unstoppable Kansu Jeri. Not content with a second place, Andresen went on immediately to win gold in the event just after that, the vault, which he dominated with a score of 9.879. He was joined on the podium by two Vegan athletes, Butkowski and Jerdon.

Four events, four medals. Ariddians in attendance were going wild with excitement. Their country now had eight medals in gymnastics alone, of which four were gold. The nation had discovered in itself a new passion for the amazing sport.

Matters slowed as the morning wore on, with Jang Yong-Jun taking only aluminium on the pommel horse, ASMV’s Butkowski ahead in a league of his own. On the rings, the Ariddians finally slowed down, with Denis Vaillant finishing only tenth, the gold going to Anastasianian Mattias Stjärnbeck.

In other events, one of Ariddia’s most brilliant athletes, Amina Mba, lost to skilful Bedistani player Crystal Bagwell in badminton. Mba, who had proved indomitable until today, dispatching her opponents in just two sets and with crushing scorelines, lost the first set to Bagwell by 4-15. She recovered to win the second set 15-6, but the tie-breaker went to the Bedistani, 15-8. Mba warmly congratulated her opponent at the end of the match.

“I hope she gets the gold,” Mba said of Bagwell. “She deserves it.” The Ariddian herself will face Casari’s Teresita Spittler in the bronze medal match, and will, in the worst case scenario, go home with an aluminium medal as an unusual souvenir.

Nonetheless, Ariddia was – and is – now in fourth place on the medal table, with nineteen medals, including nine gold. Few would have expected the delegation from a Third World nation to do this well.

OOC: Allanea agreed to this on IRC

The Rejistani softball team defeated the Allaneans by a 3:0 scoreline. The majority of the spectators were neutrals, who just wanted to see an ylompic softball event. Rejistanians in Orange and Blue were also present even though softball is not as fascinating as other sports would be for Rejistanis. The rejistanis came from all different nanti'ny and so many different languages were heard in the chants: The KaMaRi song in Rejistanian, the jada heven lune in isesi or seleke and so on. The even fewer Allanean supporters were mostly Hashi and Mweni in colorful clothes, which seemed to lack white, blue and red (the colors of the flag). The Allaneans struggled against the rejistanian defense. The most remarkable incident on the pitch was however not match-related: An allanean fan decided to show his political views to a worldwide audience: He managed to run onto the field naked, on his chest was a painted message in Hashi alphabet and language, on his back the English translation: "End Hashi occupation now!" He was arrested by Casari security but he had the publicity he wanted.

The Rejistanian gymnastic team was not in good form and as Jeri'he said: "The venue has a very bad simu, we could not cope with." While others do not believe in spiritual influences, it might be the best reason to explain the below-expectation performance.

The Rejistanian boxers won in the first round, of the competition, not of the fight. Inixi Sejil defeated the Schiavone Scott Lever via technical k.o. in round 10, Vaka I K~hera, who was listed as Vaka I k~hera defeated Casarian Jimmie Murtagh on points. He commented on the question wether the typo was a bad sign: "I do not care. None of the sane alphabets, I know has small and big letters"

ANN News

*A person with long dreadlocks appears on the screen*

Good day dear sports fans!

Well, today has been largely uneventful – we lost yet another match to the Rejistanians, confirming something we all already know – the Allaneans suck at team sports. Can we really not save the nation this humiliation and send athletes in the important things only – like fencing, and shooting, and – yes, more shooting? I mean, what the hell is up with this crap, dudes? It's not like there's anybody who really expects us to win, right?

*the person lights up a joint and continues his speech*

So where was I, my dear loving sports fans? Ah yeah. This was all largely inevenful – though those of you who're into being humiliated in sports (you're probably into wearing leather and being spanked, but that's not the right show for this, watch the KamaQuiz on LiteLink) – for those who like that, I can tell you that we got our ass handed to us at 3:0 for the Rejistanian team. Yeah, the same ladies that kicked it in basketball despite having, like, players five foot tall on average. I think this is just nature's way to tell us we shouldn't be try our hand and leg at team sports.

*the person puffs on the joint, seemingly about to end the show*

Oh, and people... some Hashi dude just streaked the stadium – ran out on the pitch naked – protesting, apparently, the Allanean occupation of Hash. Had he done that when Hash was gloriously independent, he would have been locked away... but some people just never learn. Good night, fellow viewers!

*the person puffs on the joint, the show ends*

GOLD for Steeckx, CLEAN SWEEP for Knielands, Steenberg and Vanoppen!

Let’s get this out of the way quickly: Barbara Steeckx beat some Bedistani chick and won gold in badminton. Whoop-de-doo, great job and all that jazz, but unfortunately for Barbara, her performance was slightly overshadowed by our cyclists.

Yes, track cycling is getting up to speed, keeping Spruitlanders chained to their television sets. And those of us who got through the day on crackers and potato chips, urinating in an empty coke bottle, were not disappointed. Unless you happened to reach for the wrong bottle to drink from, that is.

The keirin final was the highlight of the day in the Velodrome, and with three of the six finalists from our wonderful, soupy nation, we were in with a decent shot for a medal. For those of you unfamiliar with keirin, it’s the event where the cyclists ride all but the last few laps behind a derny, which is basically a whirry little motorcycle that you pray the kid nextdoor will never bring home.

Having the strenth in numbers, our keirin cyclists played it well: like a team. Knielands and Steenberg took the early lead, with Vanoppen right behind them, leaving the gap and using the entire width of the track to hold up the pack. When the dernies cleared the track, the two leaders got to battle it out for gold among themselves, while Vanoppen won the sprint for bronze to make it a clean sweep.

“That’s more like it,” said Road Race gold medal winner Elke Mancuso, who was in the Velodrome for the event. “That’s what we want to see. Total Cycling Domination!”

The domination was slightly reduced in the Individual Pursuit events though, with only one Spruitlander left in tomorrow’s men’s semi finals. The women did a little better, we’ll have two of those trying to get into the final.

Other stuff

Our Tornado sailers are still in third place, ‘nuff said. Bad news in boxing as well, where medal favorite Rock “Hard” Pikkenoog got eliminated in the first round by a slightly more agile Milchaman. Expect Rock to go drown his sorrows and beat up a few innocent bystanders tonight.

The wrestlers continue to do well, with two women and one man reaching the final, and one fighting for bronze tomorrow. And the tennis competition started today, with only good news for us, all of our competitors reaching the next round.

So, all in all, a fairly decent Ylompic day for the Spruitland athletes, we could say. Which only makes it worse for those few poor suckers who failed to qualify in their events. Yes, I’m talking about you, Rock. You suck!

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Sports Section[

No medals with no oppurtunities but plenty of wins for Milchama

Well we got no medals but you can't blame our athletes who performed flawlessly when allowed. The problem with today is that we've gotten into that transition period between the swimming and athletics events in this Ylompics. This meant that there were little medal events today and for those events that did have medal events no Milchamians were involved. So now onto the event by event report:

We start with boxing today as a few Milchamians had their time to shine in the ring. Three Milchamians competed in boxing matches today and one Bob Thoml got the bye to move onto the next round. In the middleweight division they were mixed results as Micheal Kikil could not defeat Luke De Ciel. Kikil started well in the first round but his trait of lack of endurance hurt him again as he could not withstand the relentless De Ciel assault in the final two rounds and crashed out. Our other middleweight, Mack Hamilton showed why he's World Class as he beat the Starblaydi Jimmy Dicks. The first round Hamilton could not find his punches but the next three rounds was all Hamilton as he outpunched Dicks in those three rounds 52-17. Finally in the heavyweight division Earl Marl got the victory over Spruit Rock Pikkenoog. Rock looked high or hungover before the match and Marl took advantage of that as he started out fast and put Pikkenoog on his back foot in the first two rounds. While the Spruit did try to stage a comeback in the final two rounds one knockdown in the 4th round by Marl was enough to secure him the victory.

From there we move to tennis where we went 3 for 4 in matches today. First on the men's side where Chili Mayer and Bobby Abraham picked up victories. Abraham swept Casaran Ivan Claywell 6-2, 6-4. In the first set Abraham's unique speener serve, as he calls it, confused Claywell and let Abraham have 5 aces and a smooth set. The second set Abraham again dominated on his serve but Campbell played a much better set. Abraham was able to break him after going up love-40 in the 3-3 game. He then won his service game twice to take the match. Chili had a much tougher match as he had to go 3 sets to beat Anatasianian Gavin Crouch. Mayer won the first set pretty handily as he went up 5-1 before being broke and having Crouch win his service game. Mayer then closed out the set by sweeping his serve to take the first set. The second set presented problems for him as he got broke twice. He did break Crouch once but it was not enough as he lost the set 6-4. In the final set Chili found his serve again and managed to break Crouch when he was 5-4 to win the set and the match. On the women's side there were split results as Katie Lewin won but Liz Damo got swept by a Casaran. In Lewin's match it was an up and down battle for her. She won the first set on her magnificent serving as she swept all her service games. Then she broke the Anastasnian Liina Malvalehto twice to win the set 6-3. The second set presented problems for Lewin as Malvalehto raised her game significantly almost sweeping the set if Lewin had not won her last service game. The third set looked bad for Katie but she turned it around as she took a 2-0 lead breaking Liina on her first service game. The rest of the set went with the server winning to take the match on a 6-4 third set win.

Now, if your actually still reading, we move to team sports where again the Warriors got good results. First in basketball our Giant Warriors beat Casari by 22 to secure advancement into the next round with a 3-2 record. Our women Giants did not perform as well as despite our success against Anastasiania in tennis they dominated us on the basketball court winning 69-59. The Warriors did well though as they beat the Maccabees 2-1. Chuck Farenstein and Merrick Lickens were the goal scorers for the Warriors. An early assault from Milchama resulted in goals in the 15th and 32nd minute for the Warriors which were enough to withstand the second half domination by the Macabees. We also won our final match in pool play against Casari to go 2-1 and advance to the next round. We also won our first match in women's hockey as a late goal by Monica Ralex won the game 4-3 for the Fighters over Chicanada. We lost in cricket again but in rugby we won BEATING Collonie, unlike our cricketers, we won 11-6. Jonny Roseboro scored the one try for the Warriors and Ronni Millar added several kicks to secure the victory for Milchama.

Collonie Report: Well Collonie also did not have many medalists up so they also did not improve they're medal count today. The Collonians continue to suck at sailing as both Hanan teams are last in their respective races. The Eagles then had a 2-3 record with wrestling. Both of the winners, one male and one female, advance to final and our guaranteed a medal. Then in team sports the Collonians advanced in basketball despite going 1-3. Thank you Beqrelia is all we can say. The Collonie 1 team also advanced in men's beach volleyball with a record of 2-2. They beat Andossa Si Mitrin Vega in their final game to secure advancement. The Collonians then lost they're last three team sports events which are hockey 6-3, cricket lost by 38 and rugby 11-6 respectively.

Originally Posted by Casari
Dear esteemed Delegate of Andossa Si Mitrin Vega:

In response to your inquires on the results of day 10:

In the event Men's Floor Excercise Event Final, Gymnastics, the order of competition was used as a tiebraker in the competition, as the athletes participated in the order in which they had qualified for the event. As the performance of Santo Doulte was earlier in the event, this was determined to be the tiebreaker.

In the event Men's Eights, Rowing, the winner of the final race was decided by the offical judges via the means of photo finish.

In both cases, the organizers of both events would stand by the decisions of the judges. While we can understand that some confusion might result because of the tie results in Men's Swimming, we feel it should be known that in the case of Swimming, timing more precise than 1/100ths of a second is not allowed in competition, while in other sports different tiebreaking rules can apply.

In the case of further protest of the results and agreement by the parties involved, the committee is willing to offer a variety of solutions, including a tiebreak race or event in order to redetermine the medal allocation.

Lucia Roberts, Head of Operations, Tyrellian Ylompic Organizing Committee

ASMV would like to thank Lucia Roberts for a timely and satisfactory answer to our questions concerning the awarding of medals in the men’s floor exercise and the men’s rowing eights competition. We are completely satisfied with the explanation of the results. We had simply wished to find out what, if any, system had been used to determine the tie break for both events. Again we thank you for your timely attention to these matters.

ASMV Hoops Domination?
Perhaps. We will find out.

ASMV Basketball has been on of the highlights for our performances here in these Ylompic Games. We have had great success in rowing and wrestling as well as moderate success in sailing and gymnastics. But for today we will focus on Hoops.

The Women’s team has been outstanding. A 74-56 win over Schiavonia started things off with a bang. Then the team followed that up with an 80-55 win over the host team from Casari. 2-0 without a close game. A 90-65 win over Anastasiania put the team in the position of perhaps being the best here, but Rejistania has looked very strong as well.

The men’s team has looked equally strong, if not more so than the women’s, thus far in the competition. The team was off to a very quick start with a 108-59 thrashing of Bequeleria. A 104-58 crushing of Collonie solidified ASMV as perhaps the most dangerous team in the event. The came Schiavonia who managed to take a 7 point lead into the locker room at half time. ASMV responded to the challenge in the second half and outscored the Schiavones by 28 in the second half on their way to a 84-63 win. All ASMV fans were eager to see how the team would do in their 4th game here in Tyrellia. They were pleased to witness a 100-65 whipping of Krytenia that moved the team to 4-0, and the last remaining unbeaten here. The other team to watch is, just like the women, from Rejistania.

If you add up the scores, the women’s team has outscored their opponents by a score of 244-176 for an average win of 81.3-58.7. On the men’s side it looks even better for ASMV. 396-245 is the difference there for an average win of 99.0-61.3.

Paiza Errol, coach of the men’s team had this to say after the win over Krytenia - “All we have done is win 4 games. Nothing more. We don’t have the Gold yet, so stop with all that bullshit talk of how good we have done. It doesn’t mean a thing yet. But I can say that as long as our team continues to shoot better than 60% collectively from the field, we are going to be tough to beat.”

Will ASMV win Gold in both the women’s and men’s competitions? We would like to think so. But you can bet the other teams here now have painted a target on the back of both. If we really are the teams to beat here, we had better continue to prove it or someone else will take home the hardware.

GOLD for Verbiest/Garfs, De Straep, Ning and Woelgemoed, BRONZE for De Geulle!

Right, well, the average length of our titles seems to be fairly high, these days. Not that we’re complaining about that. In fact, let’s enjoy it while it lasts, or in other words, until the events-with-barely-enough-competitors-to-hand-out-medals are done.

Four of today’s five medals came in wrestling, in which we’re apparently almost as dominant as in cycling. And this is the real, somewhat boring type of wrestling too, not the stuff you see on ‘SWF Smackdown’ every Sunday night. About that, the Psycho Stoner – who goes under his real name, Olivier de Geulle, in the Ylompics – proved that he’s not too shabby either when the match isn’t pre-determined, snatching a bronze medal. Our ‘real’ wrestlers were the ones taking the gold though.

The most important medal of the day, of course, came in cycling, with Matthieu Verbiest and Manuel Garfs not disappointing as the clear medal favorites in the Madison. Verbiest was the one who mostly kept the other teams in check, preventing anyone from taking a lap, while Garfs took care of most of the sprints, taking enough points along the way to make the end-sprint for double points no longer decisive.

There was more cycling success for us today, with Katlach and Everts setting us up for an all-Spruitland final in tomorrow’s women’s Individual Pursuit, and Matthieu Verbiest will be in the final of the men’s Pursuit, giving him a chance to win his third gold medal tomorrow. And the sprint team… well, yes, they’re in the final too.

Other stuff

On to the losers and those not yet in the stage of the competition that matters, then. We had a pair of trampoline jumpers in action today, and those definitely belong to the former category. While trampoline jumping isn’t as silly as gymnastics, it’s pretty damn close, so it’s not surprising our athletes aren’t good at it.

Our fencing gold medal from the other day may just have been a fluke, won by a freaky individual who just happens to have a totally obscure talent. Our other fencers certainly aren’t up to the same standard, it seems, though the one that competed today didn’t totally suck. At least he made it to the quarter finals.

Sailers still sailing, dropped to 4th, may get bronze, may not, nobody cares, on to boxing. Lightweight Bert Van’t Stort went out in the quarters, losing to a Krytenian boxer who was obviously not bothered in the least by Bert’s body odor. Peter ‘Fatman’ Haeck did better in his weight class, chasing his Milchaman opponent all through the ring, moving on to the semi finals.

Table tennis then. What is it with this dude with the bra on his head? Did someone call that boy a psychiatrist yet? Perhaps we should, because apparently deranged behavior is contagious. Today, his doubles partner was wearing one too. A pink one, no less! Shouldn’t there be some kind of law against this? Those two lunatics even won their match, as well.

Luckily, our regular tennis players are the more standard, professional, role-model type athletes, the kind who wear bras in the appropriate places – though in Maria and Nina’s case, we wouldn’t mind one bit if they didn’t wear one at all for their quarter final matches. Hey, if the women’s beach volleyball team – who won their third match today, by the way – can do it, why not the tennis players?

Anyways, on to the slightly more masculine women of the Spruitland Wabbit-Chicks, our football team that just keeps utterly demolishing the opposition, this time defeating the Milchaman women by 7 to 1. With a goal average of five per match so far, some voices are being raised to allow for a mixed men and women’s team to compete for World Cup 28, though Wabbits coach Cor Bensen didn’t seem too keen on the idea.

“Are you absolutely nuts?!” was his comment. “Women have no place in football! They should just stick to cooking and cleaning, like any proper Spruitland woman should!”

Looking at the Wabbits’ recent World Cup performances though, perhaps it’s something to consider.

Capital District Standard

Day 11 Recap at the 1934 Summer Ylompics

Diving

Ok, lets be real. No one expected the young diving team with very little international experience to medal.

And those expectations started off right during the Mens 3m Sync competition, with Jonas Jacobi and Arich Deston doing a rather admiral job and scoring a respectable 6th place finish.

Then things got...odd.

For starters, the Womens 3m Sync saw what can only be seen as an upset, as Helen Tijani and Helen Deston snuck by the entire field of competitors and took home the Gold Medal. Yes, a Gold. And then their compatriots Lindsay Preteince and Lacey Jacori stormed part the field on the final set of dives to snatch a Bronze Medal in the Womens 10m Sync. And in the finale of the day, Jacobi and A.Deston shocked all the competitors with a rather excellent final dive to move from 4th to a Gold Medal.

So, for those keeping track at home, Diving scored 3 medals. And we still have the individual medals, where Preteince, Jacori and A.Deston look to add another medal, while what had been considered Chicanada's strongest medal hope in Jorden Depatis looks to lead the Kodiaks to more medals off the platforms as well as be the major team to challenge Rejistania (5 medals) for dominance in the event.

Tennis

While Lindsey Astensen was sadly bounced from the Womens competition yesterday, Aston Young is still in the hunt for a medal, reaching the Final 8 with a easier-than-it-looked 6-3, 6-4 victory over Rejistania's Himis Ka~nsu.

Team Sports

The Mens Hockey Team looked to emulate their ice pals, and got some help today thanks to their 1-0 victory over the host country to pull the Kodiaks up to a tie for 2nd with Rejistania and within striking distance of the Medal Round.

Overall Count

Chicanada is still well behind the major powers, but now has 10 official medals (12 counting the Fourth Place Finishes) and the squad looks like they could surpass the 15 medals projected by the COC.

Hopefully, an event the Kodiaks could medal in will be done over in the Winter Olympics so they can start their medal count ;)

Ariddians rake in aluminium

On day eleven, events were few for Ariddia. Amina Mba went in the bronze medal match in badminton, and displayed the talent we have now come to expect from her, defeating Casari’s Teresita Spittler on the decisive score of 15-3, 15-2. It’s the third time Mba has won a game in just two overwhelming sets, and some consider her to be one of Ariddia’s very best athletes, along with table tennis gold medallist Faith Dallku. Mba took the bronze, while gold went to Yasmine Steeckx of Spruitland.

In other news, Ariddia’s male football team defeated the Algal States by two goals to one, enough to pull into the lead of Group C. And, surprising everyone, Ariddia actually won a match in beach volleyball, as Fabian Mendez and Ish Aeu won an impressive tie-breaking third set over Kelse, 15-2.

That was pretty much it for day eleven, but today, day twelve, brought in far more medals. Six, to be precise – although, frustratingly, four of those were aluminium.

“Well, aluminium is better than walking away with nothing,” diver Sheila El Sayed pointed out. “Of course, we wish we could have done better. Still, coming so close will just make us more determined to do better next time.”

Ariddia’s first medal of the day came in gymnastics, as Abdel Andresen represented his country on the trampoline. With a score of 38.63, Andresen bounced his way to a satisfying bronze medal – his fourth medal in these Ylompic Games. He was entirely surrounded by those ever-skilful Rejistanian gymnasts, who took gold, silver and aluminium in the same event.

“I was feeling a little lonely and out of place on that podium,” Andresen said afterwards, laughingly. “But very proud, too. And the Rejistanians were friendly.”

For the women, Sunny Mokhobo just missed out, finishing in fourth place and earning Ariddia’s first aluminium of the day. She’ll be adding it to the gold she won in the gymnastics’ team competition. There were three Rejistanians in the top five again here, with Jen I Kamu taking the gold. Schiavonia’s Katie Weekes won silver.

In fencing, it was an early exit for both Salif al Awadat and Heather Bjarnasson, who both lost their first match in the foil event. By contrast, Christina Zhang was off to a good start as she defeated Eula Pasko of Casari.

Zhang then went on to beat Helen Perdita of Krytenia and Nicole Deonarine of Schiavonia, by which point she was beginning to look unstoppable. A strong performance in such a highly competitive event was not something many Ariddians had been expecting, and the excitement began to grow as Zhang moved her way up against successive opponents. Fencing has a small but dedicated following in Ariddia, but has never held tremendous appeal as a spectators’ sport. It looked today as if Christina Zhang might single-handedly be about to change that.

Having advanced past the quarter-final, she came up against Bebe Martinkus of ASMV, both women certain at this stage of winning at least aluminium. Zhang won her semi, then went on to win the final against Casari’s Teri Hayter, drawing whoops and cheers from the Ariddians in the crowd, delighted at this highly unexpected gold medal.

“I never really expected to end up Ylompic Champion,” Zhang confessed. “The girls here are good, so there’s a lot of competition. Wow!”

She added that she was pleased to have helped raise the profile of fencing in her home country.
“That’s the great thing about the Ylompics. People take an interest in new sports. They see Ariddians winning medals, and suddenly they too develop a passion for gymnastics, or judo. Amina [Mba] and Faith [Dallku] have become role-models for people who want to take up badminton or ping-pong. That’s the beauty of these Games.”

There were also four finals in diving today, an event which was watched by many in Ariddia. Unfortunately, the results were mainly frustrating for our divers.

Jérémie Singh and Jean-Jacques Alhassan finished seventh in the 3m synchronised springboard final, a long way from the medals. On the 10m platform, Nathan Steuble and Jack Standfest managed to win aluminium – not quite what they had been hoping for. It was the same story for the women, as Emilie Fernandez and Sheila El Sayed took aluminium from three metres, as did Liu Wei and Hope Asheh from ten. The athletes took it with good humour, although coming fourth three times in four events was inevitably frustrating. They will be going on to compete against one another in the individual events, hoping for better luck.

In other events, John Alejandro and Xavier Baird went out early in the men’s table tennis doubles, losing to Baggaley and Hodge of Krytenia. In the women’s beach volleyball, Wiya Uo and Laetitia Alvarez played before a packed stadium, come to watch Spruitland’s Sofie Leckerding and Kelly Van Houdt play topless against Ariddia. Spectators were treated to a surprise, however, as the two Ariddian women also appeared bare-chested, with the national black, red and green colours dutifully painted over their breasts. The delighted crowd noisily cheered both sides on, in a festive, sometimes boisterous atmosphere which nonetheless saw the Ariddians go down hard in just two sets.

“We wanted to have a bit of fun,” Wiya Uo explained later to reporters, while still topless. “We thought, if the Spruitland girls are taking their top off, why shouldn’t we? In our country, it isn’t seen as shocking. And with this nice, warm, sunny weather, we thought. . . why not? Having our chest painted over did tickle a bit, though,” she added with a large grin. “But at least the paint doesn’t itch.”

“It’s just this once, though,” Laetitia Alvarez added. “We’ve had our fun, and we’ll be putting our tops back on for our match against Anastasiania.” She paused, and gave a mischievous smile. “Probably,” she added.

Ariddia is now fifth on the medal table with twenty-two medals, just one behind Andossa Se Mitrin Vega. . . or third, just ahead of ASMV, depending on how you count. It’s one of only four nations to have ten or more aluminium medals, although whether or not that’s a good thing is certainly open to debate. And, with the athletics yet to come, anything could of course still happen.

Port James Sentinal-Telegraph-Telegram-Update-Register-Sun-Star-News-Miracle

Sports Section

Milchama get another gold

Well we all have to remember that there are positives to following Milchama sports. One of them happened today as Jonny Dawson got a gold in fencing. As usual the other two fencers did not win any other rounds but Dawson did as he beat David Gruber then Marcus Ethridge then Brian Hockenhull in the semi finals before beating Tino Best of Schiavonia to get the gold medal. This was the only Milchamian medal chance of the day so that's good that we medaled and finally got into double figures. Well we also had the women fencers but they failed so who cares about them. If they had not failed we would have been happy. They all got too octofinals with byes. We need to pick up the pace with our medals and I only hope it will happen soon.
Now onto the event by event report:

In boxing we did not have a good day as we lost two out of three bouts. First in the middleweight division Timmy Porter lost to a Rejistanian. Their karelan ways of running and only punching when neccesary was enough to beat Porter and let him advance. In the superheavyweight division we got a split as Jimmy Meyers lost to Peter Haeck but Steve Darmic beat Duncan Teaves of ASMV. Darmic moves onto the semifinals in that event and needs to win to guarantee himself a medal.

In tennis we got 2 out of 3 wins. Chili Mayer beat Bedistani Gantzeph Khréstos in a 3 set match to move to quarterfinals. The first set was close until Mayer broke Gantzeph to win 6-4. The next to set was all Khrestos as he won 6-1 but he could not keep up the pace and got crushed the next set 6-1 by Chili Mayer. Bobby Abraham lost to a Spruit in a 3 set match. Abraham was not ready to return Wielewael's serve and lost in 3 sets. Then on the women's side are only women left Katie Lewin beat Starblaydi Roseling Charlesetta in 3 sets. In the first set it was 5-5 until Lewin broke Charlesetta and won her serve to win the first set 7-5. In the second set Lewin got broken early by the Starblaydi and lost the set 6-4. The third set was all Lewins as she rebounded and crushed Charlesetta 6-1 in the third set.

From there we move to team sports. The softball team continued their rampage as they beat the Casarans 8-4. Kelly Windash continued her rampage as she hit another grand slam. She also got two more RBIs on a double and Rita Floush hit a two run homer to complete the Milchama scoring. In women's soccer we got crushed losing 7-1 to Spruitland. We lost our final game in men's handball 38-17 and finished with an ok 2-2 record. Unfortunately it was not enough to advance to the next round so we lost one medal chance there. We got a day off in men's hockey and our still top of our group with a 2-1 record. Our pathetic cricketers also got the day off.

Day 3 Team Events
Men's Handball
Kazoos Improve to 2-0

The Kazoo Peoples 43 16 Collonie

"We trained a lot before this game, and it showed," said star handball coach and sports analyst Charles Bumble. "We kicked Collonie's butt: the line score shows that."

Highlight: Backwards pass to leaping player who propels it into the goal.

Pool B W L
The Kazoo Peoples 2 0
Casari 1 0
Kelse 1 1
Collonie 0 1
Andossa Si Mirtin Vega 0 2

"Welcome back to SCB:Sports' coverage of the Tyrellian Ylompic Games," Trey Pickworth's bulky frame in the studio is outlined by a scenic night-time view of Tyrellia's skyline through enormous floor-to-ceiling windows, "I'm Trey Pickworth, as always, and we have a very special guest in the studio with us this evening: Minister for Sport, Lord Rikaard Van Honjiik. An honour to have you here, sir."

"Thankyou, Trey," Rikaard's smile is forced, as always, "lovely to be here."

"How are you enjoying the games so far?"

"I think they've been wonderful so far." Rikaard launches into the first prepared answer for the first prepared question. Nothing of any consequence, as always, "Tyrellia has been hosting a great set of Games, and we're very proud of our neighbours to be pulling off such an organisational acheivement and to do it with such a creative flair at the same time."

"Which events have you particularly enjoyed watching?" The questions were lame, Trey knew it, he knew the viewers would know it. But he had something special planned.

"I think the rowing has been my favourite so far," Rikaard lied, "what with Anestis and Lambros and that third incredible gold in three incredible Games. Of course I've had one eye on the football teams, both the Men's and Women's have been performing very well indeed."

"Of course," Trey said, setting up his target, "we've had some excellent performances, particularly in the pool." Scarcely a question, but as per usual it allows a politician to seize on it and show why he's great.

"Exactly." Rikaard took the bait, completely oblivious to it. That was the best part, the fish never saw the hook until the worm was in its mouth. "Our funding and investment into local community swimming pools across Starblaydia, with Nemya and Aquiliana in particular, is obviously bringing up the best talent. The kind of talent, Trey, that has won seven medals in the pool, with two relay golds. A sport we're not traditionally strong in has yielded an excellent haul of medals thanks to the government's backing."

"Now I know you're obviously focussing on the positives, Minister," Trey didn't call him 'Lord' specifically on purpose, "but what about the negative performances from highly-funded teams? Only three rowing medals, and only one of our boats that was hoped for a medal made it."

"Come now, Trey," Rikaard a little unsettled already: good, "money can never guarantee results in sport, never. Money can only help develop our athletes as it can give them coaching, facilities, physiotherapists, psychologists and the such, it can only mould the available talent into something better than it was before. It can never guarantee a win against the rest of the world."

"So when we win it's down to your Ministry, and when we don't it's some other reason?"

Lord Van Honjiik was - for a moment - speechless. That was good.

"You're putting mis-interpreted words in my mouth, there, Trey. The real issue here is that-"

"The issue is that Starblaydia re under-performing at these Games, Minister." No-one interrupts one of the Lord-Protector's Council on Live TV. No-one. Trey just had, and was going for the jugular. "We're eighth in the medals table, by our way of counting it; Tenth by the host's method. List after list of defeats of our athletes. Boxing, Wrestling, Badminton, Table-Tennis. These are not sports the people of Starblaydia are bad at, Minister, Starblaydia should be winning in these events, the events your ministry has sent people to. Starblaydia should be winning left, right and centre. Tell me why we're not."

"Trey, if you want me as an analyst on each and every one of your commentary team then I'm perfectly happy to do so-"

"Answer the question, please, Minister. Don't deflect it into a small attempt at a chuckle over your skills at sports analysis."

"Now look here, Trey," Rikaard was practically steaming, "you should remember who you're talking to. Besides my current title and position, I was the co-Manager of Starblaydia in World Cup Twenty-Two, where we went undefeated-"

"Until we lost to Sarzonia in the Second Round, one-nil, despite having a strike force of Zhorin Tumunzahar and Darius Belizaire." Trey cut him down to size like a schoolboy being told off by a teacher. "Thankyou, Minister, I and I'm sure the rest of the nation are well aware of your 'contribution' to Nikola Lazerevski's management during that campaign. I ask you again, why is your administration of the Ministry of Sports, thereby the control over the Starblaydi Athletic Association, not yielding more medals at these Tyrellian Games? We're better than this."

"Sports results are dependant upon a number of factors," Rikaard was valiantly attempting to cool the situation down, "government and association oversight is just one of them. Watch the matches, races and events if you need to see what was going wrong."

"Minister for Sport Lord Rikaard Van Honjiik, thankyou for being here." The Minister said nothing. "Next up on SCB:Sports is live coverage from the Aquatic centre as Cary Nery and Barry Conley go in the second of their three events, the Men's ten-metre springboard. Join us for the acrobatic tumbling and ultimate spalshdown that's sure to follow, right after this."

The lights went down, and Van Honjiik stormed off, throwing his microphone away.

"Holy shit," Trey said wiping his brow, "that felt so very, very good. Can't believe I just did it, though."

"Orders from above," the Floor Manager said for the seventh time today, "when the Inquisition says jump, the state broadcaster just needs the height."

"I think I should enter the pole vault," Trey mused, his heart returning to normal. The message had been clera: get Van Honjiik. And so he had done.

We Live and Die By The Sword

Dorian and Sonya Ylompic Days 12 and 13

Dorian and Sonya entered the Ylompic Games here in Tynellia, Casari being what most people considered an extremely backwards nation technology wise. Most experts saw the delegation as being no threat at all except in the sports where swords and bows were to be used.

Those conceptions have come true for the most part - with one minor hitch for the athletes from the Kingdom. Men’s Epee competitor Milan Glowski showed why D&S were respected in the fencing events as he took home the Gold Medal for the event. However it is the rest of the fencing team that has been struggling. We have conducted several interviews and watched every single event match and now have come to a conclusion on why fencers from the Kingdom have seemed to struggle a bit.

And that reason is the whole concept of rules being applied to a swordfight. Back home in the Kingdom, swordsmanship is a way of life for most citizens. Swords are used to defend homes, deal with brigands, and prove one’s worth to the crown. But in those instances all that really matters is who leaves the battle a winner and who “lost their head”. The rules of “fair play” are somewhat foreign ideas to the competitors from the Kingdom - and their struggles have shown that a bit.

That is not to say that we have not done well in the events. Women’s Epee competitor, Kathern Loveberry walked away with an Aluminum medal in the event. Men’s team epee saw D&S win their only match over Rejistania. The women’s epee team went 1-1 in competition. Elisha Beurskens reached the quarterfinals in a highly contested men’s foil event. Women’s foil saw Risa Branske reach the quarters as well while teammate Tawny Dalitz corralled the Aluminum for the event.

No one in the world had enough guts to challenge the Kingdom swordsmen in the men’s team foil and sabre events. Now we refuse to call anyone by name, but surely there should have been someone brave enough to at least try to compete with us.

We do have more fencing events to come in the form of Sabre and we feel that we can also make some big noise in the archery and equestrian events as well. This Ylompic experience has done well for our nation as we venture into the world of international sport. It is something we can definitely build upon. Now we just have to convince everyone to add Longsword, khopesh, and claymore to the fencing events. And perhaps a crossbow or catapult competition as well. Anyone up for some Jousting?

ASMV On Medal Collection Rampage

This is Bryce Favre live from Tyrellia with yet another medal filled report for ASMV.

Day12
Bebe Martinkus surprised the sporting world when she somehow managed to secure the Bronze medal in women’s Foil fencing over highly favored Tawny Dalitz of Dorian and Sonya.

That shock was quickly followed by a trip to Ylompic diving where we once again threw some surprises into the mix. Lincoln Fillip and Alexander Toni came out of nowhere to take the Aluminum in the men’s 3m synchronized springboard event. Yaeko Biggar and Tawna Cratin were an even bigger shock as they made off with Gold in the women’s 10m synchronized platform event.

Now we take a look at wrestling, where ASMV has emerged as a surprise powerhouse in the events. Zenia Daghita defeated Maurine Fulvia of Collonie for the Gold in women’s lightweight freestyle. Jerlene Ostenson earned the Aluminum in the middleweight division. Camellia Piquet also took Aluminum in the heavyweight division. Men’s lightweight freestyle saw our very own Jason take home Gold. Pearson Peabody took home Silver after a loss to Martijn Woelegmoed of Spruitland.


Tornado sailing has Schoneman/Giebner holding down the second spot with 3 races left. 49er racing has Bradbury/Harfeldt in third after 12 races.

Women’s Beach Volleyball was witness to both women’s teams earning victories on Day 12. ASMV-2 beat Krytenia 21-17,21-17 while ASMV-1 beat Collonie-1 2-21,21-8,15-9.

Day13
Day 13 has seen more ASMV surprises in the diving events. Alexander Toni has won the bronze in men’s 3m springboard competition. Women’s 3m springboard saw double medals for us as Kandra Uher earned the bronze while teammate Joquina Lofink pulled a very surprising Gold medal in the event. Yokeo Biggar used momentum from the synch event to capture the bronze in women’s 10m platform diving.

These results have rocketed ASMV up the medal count standings to a surprising 4th place thus far. 11 Gold, 5 Silver, 11 Bronze, along with 6 Aluminum. Our friends from Ariddia now sit 5th in the medal count with 23 medals of their own. So much for supposed “3rd World Nations” not doing well in competition. The two of us are proving that one wrong.

Port James Sentinal-Telegraph-Telegram-Update-Register-Sun-Star-News-Miracle

Sports Section

We can't think of a creative title apologize

Well what are we supposed to do use yesterday's title? I mean doesn't that get boring for you? It certainly gets boring for us which is why we're not going to use it so thus there will be no real headline. If you want a headline go to some other section in our newspaper. That being said again there were no medal chances for the Milchamians who were not entered in any cycling and diving events.
Now onto the event by event report for those events that we were entered in:

We start with boxing again where we did very well today. We won two of three bouts with Mack Hamilton and Earl Marl advancing. In the middle weight division Mack Hamilton continued to show why he was world class as he beat Rejistanian Seli Janamerikana. All 4 rounds went Hamilton's way but none more so than the first round where he knocked Janamerikana to the canvas once and had 15 punches hit his opponent from Rejistania. The hit and run strategy did not work for the Rejistanians this time and Hamilton cruised into his semifinal. This win guarantees him the chance of some medal. In the heavyweight division Bob Thom lost a close bout with Casaran Morris Alvino. Thom seemed to do better in the odd rounds while Alvino did better in the evens. In the end the 4th round decided it as Alvino's relentless assault was too much for Thom who ended up losing. That was the only bad news as in the other heavyweight bout Earl Marl defeated another Casaran this one named Willard Craney. The bout was all Marl as he outpunched the often overmatched Craney in the 1st, 2nd and 4th rounds. Craney did show some light in the third only to be severly beaten in the 4th round. Marl also moves onto the semifinals where he has a chance at a medal.

Onto tennis now where both of our remaining hopefuls got swept. On the men's side Chili Mayer lost to a Chicanadan 7-5, 6-3. In the first set Mayer almost broke Aston Young on the 5-4 game only to have Young win his game and then brake Mayer. Young would win the second set with ease as Mayer looked very tired after two days of 3 set matches. On the women's side Katie Lewin got crushed by Kelsian? Niya Hale 6-2, 6-2. Lewin could not find her serve throughout the entire match and was broken several times with ease. Lewin said after the match, "I would like to have that one back. I know I can play much better than I did today."

From there we move to team sports where the Milchama Warriors baseball team barely beat Crna Grna Liv Eng 5-4. A grand slam by <insert Eastern European name here> gave the East Terminators the lead in the 3rd inning. After that Phil Foster settled down and the Warriors fought back. The fight back was climaxed by a Yonatan Horowitz double in the 8th inning to give the Warriors the 5-4 lead and the win. The Milchama Fighters handball team lost to Rejistania to fall to 1-1. The Milchamians do maintain second place in their group behind Rejistania and ahead of Anastasiania. The women's hockey team did better though as they beat Bedistan 6-2. A hattrick by Katrina Moore was the difference for the Lady Fighters. This win brings them to 2-0 and first place in the group along with probable advancement. In men's water polo the Sea Fighters lost to Liverpool England 13-10. It didn't matter to the Fighters though as they advanced anyway at the top of their group with a 2-1 record. Finally the Warriors got a bye day in rugby.

Collonie Report: Collonie also had no chances at a medal today. Since we last had a Collonie report the Eagles have gotten two more medals to improve their medal count to 6 with three silvers and three bronzes. The Collonians continue to suck at sailing as they again are in last place in both of the sailing events with one race left. The Eagles lost to Spruitland 7-1 in baseball, lost to Anastasiania in women's handball, beat the Krytenians 2-0 in hockey. This was their only success as they also lost to Kelse 9-1 in handball, and to Casari 19-6 in rugby. As usual the Collonians did poorly in all of their events.

“You said one match,” Tim Bleeck pleaded, knowing full well he did not have the upper hand in this argument. “That’s what you said, ‘wear the bra on your head in tomorrow’s match and you get the pictures’. Tomorrow’s match was yesterday!”

“Oh come on, you’re being pedantic.” Carlo was standing in front of the dressing room mirror, straightening out the bra on his head. It was becoming routine now.

“Of course I’m being pedantic! I’m trying to get out of this deal!”

“Well, you can’t. As long as we’re in the tournament, we’re wearing the bras.”

“I wish we lost yesterday,” Tim said regretfully. “Maybe we will today…” Carlo turned to his partner.

“If I get the feeling that you’re not giving it your best, I’m sending the pictures to your wife anyway!” He turned back to the mirror, made one final adjustment, was pleased. “Besides,” he said, a lot calmer, “would’t you rather win with a bra on your head than lose with a bra on your head? Might as well go for broke.”

Tim could only grunt to that. With a sigh, he put on the pink bra and tied the strap under his chin.


The spectators in the section of the Lesari Fieldhouse that was set up for the Table Tennis Doubles tournament did not hold back on their laughter when Carlo and Tim entered the arena, and Tim felt as if he could hear all of them individually. He focused on his toes.

It took him a while to stop doing that, so it wasn’t surprising that they lost the first set to their opponents from Liverpool England. It wasn’t until well into the second set that he managed to forget about his silly headdress, but despite a strong comeback, they still lost that set too.

After that, they were on fire. Carlo and Tim were totally in sync with each other, the table, and the ball. Backhand counter-drives, forehand loops, smashes, they used them all without thinking, and they cruised through the points and sets. They were, in a word, sensational. When Tim did a belly dive to bring back a deep smash and it actually landed on the table to keep the rally going, the crowd cheered wildly, but he was oblivious to it.

They won four sets in a row to win the match 4-2, and when Carlo drove the match point home, the two table tennis partners high-fived with a wide grin, then took a step back, leaned forward, and did a titty-head-bump. As they left the arena, Tim started to realize that the laughing and mocking had disappeared, and was replaced by applause and cheers. Someone shouted “great match, titheads!” but it sounded sincere, enthusiastic even. I’ll be damned, he thought…

Peters, Handy guaranteed at least silver and aluminium
Kevin Peters and Paul Handy were guaranteed at least silver and aluminium medals for Liverpool England when they found themselves drawn against each other in men's tennis semi finals. Peters, serving to start the match, was broken on first serve and went on to lose the first set to Handy 4-6, despite breaking back twice.

An unforced error on a backhand from Handy at 3-5 on service in the second set then caused him to fall back to 0-40 in the game. However, Handy fought back to 40-40, and took the advantage in the first deuce. A simple smash return, however, somehow landed out-of-bounds, and Handy went on to lose the deuce and the set, with the match now tied at one set each.

Peters then came back from three match points to claim a win in 12 games in the third, 7-5, to seal his place in the gold medal match, to be played against Chicanada's Aston Young, who beat Spruitland's Lucien Wielewael in straight sets.

Quiet days in Tyrellia

There have been few events involving Ariddians these past two days here in Tyrellia, but one medal all the same. Diving concluded, with, somehow, yet another aluminium, the fourth in diving, this time courtesy of Jérémie Singh in the 3m springboard. In the women’s event, Emilie Fernandez missed out on what would have been a fifth aluminium medal for Ariddia in this field, while Sheila El Sayed, disappointingly, finished last – the only athlete not to score above 400 points, totalling only 399.9. The only “official” medal was won by Nathan Steuble, who took bronze in the men’s ten metres. Two Starblaydi athletes, Cary Nery and Barry Conley, won gold and silver, the former with a significant lead.

No other Ariddians competed in day thirteen, and today saw little action either. There were no Ariddians involved in finals, but Séraphine Djidonou began her Ylompics at last in sailing, as her nation’s sole representative in that field. Djidonou goes in the women’s Mistral and, in a very close first race, finished ninth out of thirteen. She struggled in the second race, and was left trailing, making her last overall so far with a score of 22.

While some Ariddians do enjoy sailing, sophisticated, Ylompic-standard equipment is almost impossible to get hold of in the “underdeveloped” nation, meaning that few have the ability to compete in international events. Djidonou has said she has little hope of a medal, but “I hope people enjoy seeing our flag stretched out as a sail. Ariddia’s on the water!”

In football, the men’s team defeated Crna Gora Liv Eng by two goals to one, consolidating their as-yet unbroken record and topping Pool C with twelve points. Ariddia will be going through to the next round.

Lastly, in beach volleyball, Wiya Uo and Leatitia Alvarez finally won a match after three consecutive losses. The Ariddian ladies had put their bikini tops back on after their match against Spruitland, and this time managed a convincing victory against Anastasiania in just two, crushing sets. Prior to this encounter, Ariddia and Anastasiania both had a dismal record of three losses and no victory. Winning was therefore an imperative, not only to avoid finishing in last place, but also as a sheer matter of pride. With just one win, Uo and Alvarez have succeeded in squeezing into a unexpected qualifying place.

And, with so few events for Ariddians these past few days, let’s take a quick look at what’s still to come.

Swimming, which has brought Ariddia four medals, is over, and gymnastics, in which Ariddians won eleven medals, not counting aluminium, is also coming to a close. Anaïs Reed, Laure Mkrchyan and Sunny Mokhobo should have begun the rhythmic all-around today, but that event has been delayed, so we’ll all be watching their progress closely. We also have Mohamed Williams to go in tae-kwon-do, and the doubles’ events in badminton. And, of course, there’ll be more football and beach volleyball to look forward to, but the big event which has yet to start is athletics. The PDSRA has twenty-two athletes lined up for a variety of events in athletics, so these Ylompics are still anything but over. It may be difficult to hang on to that fifth place in the medal charts, but anything could still happen. Stay with us as we return tomorrow, for more coverage of the Ylompic Games here in Tyrellia!

Maria Sint-Kruis, tennis player, woke up from a draft on her naked back. She felt something stir beside her, and sighed even before she had opened her eyes.

“Dammit, Lucien,” she moaned, pulling the blanket over her head. “What time is it?”

Lucien Wielewael, tennis player as well, moved under the covers, then produced his boxer shorts and tossed them aside. “I dunno. Six or so.”

“For crying out…” She sighed again, turned her back towards him, closed her eyes tight, determined to sink back into the dream she had been in just a few seconds before. A cold hand on her hip pulled her right back out though. She jumped out of bed, her pillow in her hand, threw it at him.

“You asshole! What part of ‘not today’ did you not understand? Gimme back my room key!”

“I thought you were just teasing me. Damn, you’re hot when you’re mad, baby.” He crawled to the other side of the bed, reached for her. She backed away, pulled her foot back to kick the wall in frustration, but managed to control herself just in time. That would’ve been a really bad idea.

“Are you stupid? I’m playing the final this afternoon! The final! For the Gold medal! I don’t want to wake up at six and burn all my calories before breakfast! I want to win this thing!”

“Didn’t stop you yesterday. Or the day before. Or the day before that. Or…”

“Yeah, well, not today! Yesterday’s three-setter was way too close a call. And you, you even lost your match! Don’t you want to get the bronze, at least?”

“Hey, my loss had nothing to do with…”

“The hell it didn’t! A turtle could’ve crossed the court faster than you did! Look, just… grab your shorts and get out, maybe I can still catch a few hours.”

“Awww. How about we just lay down and cuddle, then?”

She smirked. “Yeah right. Get the hell outta here.” She held the door open for him.

Lucien crawled out of bed with a sigh. He picked up his boxer shorts, didn’t bother putting them on. “You don’t know what you’re missing,” he said as he walked past her with a cocky smile.

“Sure I do,” she replied promptly, not dignifying him with a glance downwards. “Valuable sleep.” She slammed the door behind him.

* * * * *

Carlo Quickenberg tightened his shoelaces and stood up. He glanced at the tv in the corner of the dressing room, where the bronze medal match between the Bedistanis and the Krytenians was still in progress. At least another hour, if not more.

“Right, let’s do this,” Timothy Bleeck said beside him, taking a bat out of his gym-bag. He walked over to the practice table.

Carlo took his bat too, but hesitated. He put it down again, looked at his partner, who frowned.

“What? What are you looking at? Something wrong?”

Carlo reached into his back pocket, pulled out the pictures, tossed them onto the table.

“Oh. Right.” Tim looked at them for a few seconds. Then he picked them up, pocketed them.

“I was gonna wait til after the match,” Carlo said, clearly not at ease. “But, you know… I figured that wasn’t necessary.”

Tim nodded. Several days ago he had imagined that the first thing he’d do as soon as Carlo gave him the pictures was to punch his lights out. Now that the moment was here, he couldn’t quite bring himself to do it.

“I’m sorry,” Carlo continued, “for using that to… you know…”

“Forget about it,” Tim cut him off. The tone of his voice implied just that: forget, not forgive. “Don’t mention those pictures, ever again. Now come on, grab a bat. Let’s warm up.”

Carlo nodded, managed a weak smile. He grabbed his bat and a ball, and they started knocking some easy balls around.

“You know,” he smiled, “in a way, it’s gonna be kinda weird to play without a bra on my head.”

Tim missed his return. The ball bounced off the table, into a corner of the dressing room. “What do you mean?”

“Huh? I mean… you know…”

“We’re still gonna wear them, right?”

“What? You mean you still want to…?”

“Of course I do! It’s the final, man! We can’t just change our routine now!”

Carlo shook his head in disbelief. “I dunno, I just figured…”

“Figured what? C’mon partner, don’t back out on me now! We started this thing, let’s finish it! We’re the Titheads, and we’re going for gold! You with me?”

Carlo’s face turned into a wide grin. “Titheads all the way!”

Spruitland FINALLY beaten!
Yes, we know they have 16 golds...

The list of Spruitlander cycling golds in these Ylompic Games seem to be endless. From the very first day, when Elke Mancuso picked the gold in the women's road race while Minna Hartskog vanished in a puff of smoke, we knew the fight with the Spruitlanders was going to be tough. And it has been...for the Anastasianians.

The record so far:

Men's Road Race: No medals for either.
Women's Time Trial: Peesgong silver for Spruitland. Best Anastasianian: Hartskog (14th)
Men's Time Trial: Trapper silver for Spruitland. Best Anastasianian: Harris (20th)
Men's 1000 m track time trial: Verbiest gold for Spruitland, Åhlland bronze for Anastasiania (0.09 seconds behind)..
Women's 500 m track time trial: Broes silver for Spruitland. Best Anastasianian: Lehkosuo (5th).
Men's Keirin: Spruitland win gold (Knielands), silver (Steenberg) and bronze (Vanoppen). Best Anastasianian: Åhlland (tied for 7th).
Men's Madison: Verbiest/Garfs gold for Spruitland, Anastasianians finish 6th (Ingren/Pearce)
Men's Pursuit: Verbiest knocks out Coe by 0.6 seconds in the semi-final. Verbiest win silver, Coe bronze.
Women's Pursuit: Everts (gold) and Katlach (silver) make it 1-2 for Spruitland. Nuttall eliminated at the quarter-final stage, finishes fifth.

The list, then, was long and painful for Anastasianians. Spruitland had won five golds, six silvers and one bronze in the cycling events - while Coe's and Åhlland's medals remained the only ones for Anastasiania. Such was the one-sided-ness of the battle that the Spruitland journalists haven't even mentioned it - the Anastasianian ones, of course, have not dared to.

However, two days ago, the revenge was finally there. Erik Åhlland, Esa Niskanen and Rune Claesson had done appallingly in the qualifying heat, but eked past the Krytenians in the quarter-final and then eased past the tired Kazoos. Meanwhile, Velder, Oliov and Sukker had defended their favourite stamp with ease, eliminating Hunte, Sealey and Small from Schiavonia to make it to the final.

The team sprint, with three laps and one rider falling off after every lap, is not well known in Anastasiania - indeed, Åhlland only took part after he'd won gold for his Sveaborg club in the Anastasianian championships. However, Åhlland had been chosen to ride the prestigious last lap, with the arguably weakest link Claesson riding the second and Niskanen the first to get them up to speed.

Niskanen started poorly out of the blocks, however, and in a desperate move Claesson was pushed forward. He did admirably, and by the first timing Claesson was two hundredths behind Oliov of Spruitland. The two leaders peeled off, allowing Niskanen and Sukker to take control, aiming to drag their team-mates in. During the second turn, Niskanen sped up so much that he threatened to leave Åhlland behind, but Åhlland started the early sprint and followed Niskanen well - so well that he had 67 thousandths of a second to Benedict Velder. He knew it would be crucial - Velder was rumoured to be a better sprinter, and the two looked very close by the half-lap, but the clocks said Åhlland had 39 thousandths still to go. Åhlland pedalled furiously through the final curve, boosted into the stretch, and passed the line in a time of 44.268 - five hundredths behind the Anastasianian record. Nevertheless, it was enough - the Spruitlanders had finally been beaten, the collective Anastasianian spirits took a boost, and everyone were happy.

Admittedly things were back to normal yesterday, with Wainwright (6th) and Kinsella (7th) failing in the final sprints of the points race, while Keith Hersey of Starblaydia held on to beat Benedict Velder of Spruitland for the gold. However, the table tennis players were outstanding: Geoff Mirfin had evidently forgotten all about the quarter-final singles disappointment, as he and Jeff Frecklington smashed Baggaley and Hodge out of the tournament in a five-set rout. Sara Schelin and Victoria Naysmith weren't much worse, although the two Pearces from Schiavonia ran them close somewhat in the second set - from then on, it was plain sailing, and Schelin has made her way to the final.

We also note that the Anastasianians have been performing well in the traditional team sports. In the cricket, the men have gone through the group stage with six wins from six games, which should be enough to secure them an automatic semi-final place - the women have been almost as dominant, despite a string of low scores from the batters. In women's handball, there was an early loss to Rejistania, as the women took revenge and made it 1-1 in the Rejistanian battles - however, Veena Marjakangas was back to her brilliant best against Collonie, notching up eight in-play goals from the left wing along with five penalties. Anastasiania eventually won by a thumping 39-22. The men have secured a semi-final spot against Kelse, going through unbeaten and rounding off with a stunning 38-17 win over Milchama, in which Kaari Pulkkinen scored nine goals - it does, however, leave us wondering about the depth in world handball, as Milchama finished ahead of both Allanea and Schiavonia.

Capital District Standard

Day 15 Recap at the 1934 Summer Ylompics

Cycling

Xavier Geroge had no problem winning his heat against John Small (SCH) in the Mens Sprint heats, while Caesar Nine posted a personal worst in his heat loss to Ludwig Oilov (SPR). Oma Jian wasn't as lucky either, as the top qualifier lost to Casari's Jennie Weiser in the Womens Sprint quaterfinals.

Tennis

Congrats all around to Aston Young, who held his own on the way to a GOLD medal in Mens Tennis! He won a 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2 game against Kevin Peters (LEN) to give the Kodiaks their Fifth Gold of the Games

Kayaks and Canoes

The Mens and Womens Canoers and Kayakers took to the field today in hopes of continuing the success their rowing counterparts had, and things look promising to say the least.

Denny Simpson led all the Men in single canoe qualifiers, and looks poised to make a run at a medal for the team, while Laiel Magsien just missed the medal rounds by .2 second.

Denny gets a second shot, as Simpson (or Dimpson as the Ylompics board posted) and Sextan Heidrix made the medal round in Mens Double Canoe, as did their compatriots Shani Liamsen & Eric Qoiel. Both teams finished within the top 3 and could have enough to challenge for the Gold Medal.

Laiel gets a shot at a medal in the singles slalom of Kayaking, thanks to an inspired performance to make the Medal round. He does need some help to make the podium, but making it to the finals in his weaker event shows some growth on Magsien's part.

Ginny Aslan is in better shape on the womens side of singles slalom, as she qualified second for the Medal Round and could easily be in the hunt for the gold. With five finalists overall, Canoe and Kayak could spring some surprises for the Kodiaks or a bigger medal haul.
Team Sports

The Women took some victorys on Day 15, with the Womens Football team snatching a 3-0 victory over Rejistania to clinch the top spot from Group C and make the Quaterfinals.

The Womens Hockey Team also made it to the Medal rounds, thanks to a 4-3 victory over Bedistan to move them to the Semifinals, where they will face off against Schiavonia. The Mens team were unable to get past Liverpool England, dropping a 6-2 match to miss the Medal Round.

The Rugby Sevens continue their march towards Gold with a 22-6 victory over Casari to complete a perfect qualifiers run. They should be facing Krytenia in the Semifinals.

The Womens Rhythmic Gymnastics team lost to Rejistania (their only opponent) for the Ylompic Championship. The all around competitiors, however, should be able to contend for a couple of medals (depending on how many competitors there really are).

Overall Count

Chicanada's fifth gold moved them to 11 medals official medals (16 counting the Fourth Place Finishes) as the team still has plenty of events and chances to medal.

The crowd was stunned. After a seven set thriller, the Titheads had lost their gold medal match. It seemed unreal. They had saved five matchpoints… but not the sixth. It hadn’t even been a difficult serve, but Carlo totally botched his return, missing the table by over a foot for the most anti-climactic ending to a sports final since Sarzonia beat Oaker in World Cup 22.

It took the crowd completely by surprise. The cheering of the Anastasianian team and their three and a half supporters in the arena was lost in an eerie silence. Carlo dropped to his knees, buried his face in his hands. ‘Go Titheads’-banners sagged.

There was very little silence in the VIP room – at least, not in the left half, where the Anastasianian delegation had been watching on a big screen. The right half, from where the Spruitlanders were watching the same screen, was less enthusiastic.

“What’s going on?” King Alfons demanded to know. “Why are those people cheering and clapping? You’d think they won the match, or something.”

“Erm… they have, Your Highness. Our guys lost.” Olav Nett, the Spruitland Minister of Sports, was wishing he was somewhere else. His Majesty was not known for being a gracious loser.

“But that’s impossible!” The King jumped up from his seat. “They’re the Titheads! They can’t lose!” He looked around his followers, who all bowed their head, and let out a very un-royal curse. When he noticed that the Anastasianian Big Cheese and his closest entourage was escorted out of the VIP room by Ylompic officials, he let out another curse.

“No medal ceremony for me, I assume?”

“Fraid not, Your Highness.” The Minister of Sports sounded apologetic, even though it wasn’t his fault. That had been the deal. If Quickenberg and Bleeck won the match, King Alfons would award them the gold medal. If they lost, some Anastasianian bigwig would get the honor. Olav had been praying – literally, despite not being a religious man – that the Spruitlanders would win. Obviously, to no avail. At least he wouldn’t have to give up his mistress and go to church every week, as he had promised in his prayers.

Luckily, His Majesty seemed to have chosen one of his more tolerable ways of handling defeat. The King plopped back down on his chair, crossed his arms, and pouted.

“It’s ok, Your Highness,” Olav said quietly. “We’ll arrange to have you hand out one of the cylcing medals tomorrow.”

“Pffft, cycling,” Alfons snorted, causing a frown on the faces of most Spruitlanders in the room – at least those behind the King’s back. “We win those events in our sleep, what’s the fun in that.”

“Not the team sprint,” one of the delegates pointed out. “The Anastasianians beat us in that—”

“That was just once,” the Minister hastily interrupted. “We’ve beaten them in everything else!” To his relief, His Majesty had gone back to pouting and didn’t respond.

They watched in silence as the Anastasianian bigwig put the medals around the gold medal winners’ necks. When the national anthem started and the flags were hoisted, King Alfons jumped up.

“I’ve had just about enough of this poppycock!” he shouted. He kicked his heel into the big screen. His foot bounced back, the screen unscratched, which only added to the Royal Anger. Olav winced. The pouting stage was over, he knew. Whatever would follow, Olav knew he wasn’t gonna like it.

“Follow me, Olav,” His Majesty said, causing the Minister to wince again. “Let’s set this straight!”


King Alfons I of Spruitland, followed closely by the Minister of Sports and a few nervous court assistants, burst onto the ceremonial stage right about when the Anastasianian national anthem ended. He grabbed the nearest microphone, held it next to one of the stage speakers, creating a deafening feedback noise. The crowd stirred.

“Well, that was very nice and all,” the King said, his voice amplified through the arena, and through a few billion living rooms all over the world, “but I say: bullshit!” Part of the crowd cheered and applauded, most were still too surprised about what was happening.

A Tyrellian official approached Alfons on stage, but the King had spotted him. “Don’t even think about taking this microphone away from me, pendejo!”

That did wake up the crowd. They applauded wildly. The official backed off quickly. This was a king, after all. Let someone else start an international incident, he thought, I’ll just go stand right there and mind my own business.

“Bullshit, I say!” the King repeated. “This gold medal is undeserved!” The crowd cheered in agreement. “That last goal was clearly offside!” Naturally, the crowd agreed again.

Alfons pointed at Bleeck and Quickenberg, who were still standing there, a bit shocked. “These are the real winners!”

The King motioned the tabel tennisers to come closer. They did so, extremely hesitantly.

“These athletes have done Spruitland proud! Not only by the remarkably high level of their play, but also, and most importantly, by the style in which they did so. I wish all Spruitlanders would take these two fine young men for an example! In fact…”

His Majesty lowered the microphone for a moment, leaned towards the table tennisers. “May I?” he whispered. Carlo and Timothy didn’t know what he meant, at first. Then their eyes widened. “Of course, Your Highness,” they whispered simultaniously.

King Alfons chose Timothy Bleeck’s pink wonderbra over Carlo Quickenberg’s plain white one.

“In fact,” he repeated, taking off his miter, “we will all follow their example. From now on, one day in the year, every Spruitlander will be obliged to wear a bra on his head! I hereby declare March 31st as National Tithead Day!”

The King put the bra on his head, and the crowd went ballistic. “Titheads, Titheads, Titheads!” they chanted. Alfons grinned widely, took a deep bow.

“Maybe he should wear that all the time,” Olav whispered to his assistant beside him. “At least that one wouldn’t fall off so often.”

Later, the Minister would wonder if the King had heard him, because His Majesty turned around and made him put on Carlo’s bra. Olav did so, quietly vowing not to put himself up for re-election.

As the crowd continued chanting, King Alfons gave the table tennisers a big teddybear hug. When he let go of Timothy Bleeck, something fell out of the athlete’s back pocket. He hurried to pick it up, but the King beat him to it.

“Oooh!” the King grinned, his every word being broadcast all over the world. “That’s a nice picture of you. Who’s the naked chick?”

Starting on Friday, because I am going home on break, the average time for daily results on Days 22, 23, and 24 will probably slip by 6-8 hours later in the day.

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Sports Section

Milchama gets a boatload of medals

When we last reported the Milchamian medal count had been at a measly 10 medals and sat behind such great nations like Algal States. Now only 4 days later we have 20 medals including 10 golds. Here are the new medal winners in quick order, Steph Chatham gold in fencing, Sonja Bingham gold in triathlon, Tracy Seward silver in triathlon, Mack Hamilton silver in middleweight boxing, Earl Marl gold in heavyweight boxing, Marin Miller bronze in the 200M run, Dwayne Reichman silver in the men's 800M run, Gold in the 4X100 men's relay, Folk/Baines/Hatley gold in team archery, Steve Darmic gold in superheavyweight boxing. Just when you look at that list you see how many medals we won which is exactly 10 medals in 4 days which is as much as put out the first two weeks. Clearly things are improving, I bet we can challenge the contenders for most medals if we keep this up. Anyway now onto an event by event report on today's events.

First is athletics where besides the three medals we won today, Nadia Cotek and Alison Crass qualified for finals in the women's 400M hurdles. Marshall Musil also had the top time in the 1500M for men's. This was unfortunately only the heats for it but it will improve soon.

In boxing Steve Darmic won our final medal as he beat Casaran Bob Repass. Darmic was very elusive but did a great job in attacking when he needed too. His best attack was in the third round where he got 12 strait punches in before Repass could get one back. This attack won him the round on a 2-1 decision. This completes the Milchamian dominance of the Boxing Ring where we won 3 medals, two gold and one silver and got one boxer in every division except for lightweight. We're named Milchama for a reason we fight well.

Now we move to the soccer field where we played Allanea. Due to the fact that the Milchamian soccer team got manhandled in the World Cup the team was deeply hurt and our second team wants to win to show the Milchamian soccer is one of the best in the world. This determination let us cruise to an easy win over Allanea in the octofinals round and go to quarterfinals. The Warriors will play Liverpool England who embarassed us 8-3 in the World Cup proper. The Warriors will be hungry for this one, Coach Patrice Thibault said, "We will win this game or there will be some Seppukus."

Finally we have some golf as Katarina Stevens is one stroke back with one round to go in women's golf. Katarina is in a good position to win though because the Schiavone in the lead, Carol Miller, got a 69 her worst round today which means that a good round from Stevens tommorow will probably be enough to win. Stevens has no real pressure though as if she wins great, if she doesn't too bad.

The Collonie will be discontinued on a daily basis as it has been getting poor reviews. It will come back at random times but for today we shall say that Collonie has 6 medals which was just as much as it had when we started our reporting on it.

Pickworth to Honjiik: "We're better than this"
SCB:Sports presenter slams Minister for Sport on live TV

In what hs proved to be an incredible interview, SCB:Sports' anchorman Trey Pickworth launched a verbal attack on Starblaydia's results at the Tyrellian Ylompic Games, directed firmly at Minister for Sport Lord Rikaard Van Honjiik. Pickworth, 46, a former Gridball player and longtime broadcaster with the station, also disparaged Van Honjiik's acheivments as co-manager of the Starblaydi national football team with World Cup-Winning Manager Nikola Lazerevski.

It is clear that the government itself has lost faith with Van Honjiik, who's ministry has overseen a World Cup win, a record Five Cherry Cups, Four AOCAFs and an Under-21 World Championship in the time he's been at the helm. Starblaydia currently lie 11th in the official Tyrellian Games Medals table with 22 medals, though are 5th in the 'unofficial' table with 11 gold medals so far.

"Two and a half weeks in, ladies and gentlemen," says Javi Hierro in the studio, "and we're finally down to what's largely regarded as the main event: The track. The first Track Medal of these Games? The Men's two-hundred metres. The first Gold Medallist? A Starblaydi. Yes, Alec Palacios is the Ylompic Champion over two-hundred, becoming the eleventh gold medallist for Starblaydia in seventeen days."

"It wasn't all good news for Starblaydia on the track as the Men's four-by-one-hundred relay team languished in a final finishing position of fifth, despite being the fastest team in the Qualifier. Though it was a blanket finish at the end, the men in purple were a few hundreths of a second off their goal. Don't forget the women on the Track, of course, as they managed a medal through Janelle Norwood in the eight-hundred metres. All of that still to come, as well as the other highlights from the Games, including:

"Starblaydia take to the Beach and play the hosts as the Women's Beach Volleyball team aim for the Quarter-Finals.

"It's Men's football as The Macabees take on Krytenia to see who will play Starblaydia in the Quarter-Finals of that event.

"Back to the track for the fifteen hundred metres, with two Starblaydi men looking to qualify.

"But now we're going to an event from earlier in the day, over to the sailing and Curtis Gilmore in the Men's Mistral. He's been pushing up the rankings throughout the races so far, but... I'm...excuse me, I'm just being told that we are to break for a nationwide news report, regarding Lord Benjamin Mackey. Now we hand over to SCB:News with Saianne DeJardin."

D&S Breaks Medal Drought

Dorian and Sonya Ylompic Report. Days 14-18.

Day 14.

Men’s Sabre Fencing held little but disappointment for D&S. Jared Feerst and Hong Geverden both lost in their opening matches. Womens Sabre held little more comfort as Emmy Landruth and Pauletta Holshovser also fell in the opening match while Alysha Fitser won only one match before going down in defeat.

Day 15.

Lino Garced, Jarod Feerst, and Cristopher Maccord made news as they qualified in the Men’s team Archery competition. Jina Babikian, Shona Afurong, and Lucina Birnberg also qualified in the women’s team event.

Day 16

Athletics competition began today. Not a lot of good news for us though. Tuan Collamder finished tied for dead last in the men’s 200m heats. Needless to say he didn’t qualify. Birgit Hamontree finished in the same position in the women’s event.

Men’s 800m had better results to offer. Wes Aylock had a decent time to qualify, and then turned in the third fastest time in the semis. Women’s 800m saw Sherill Gavinski run - but not very well.

Archery was more on track for us. Harland Liebherr and Arlie Bohnker both qualified in men’s individual. Stanton Cusatis was drunk and could not join his teammates in doing the same. Womens’s individual competition was very tough as all 3 D&S archers finished without qualifying.

Day 17

Wes Aylock showed little of his semifinal 800m form as he finished dead last in the finals.
Jewell Bushie finished mid-pack in the men’s 20k walk. Speed walkers - yuck!
Tawney Brynga finished las in the women’s 20k walk. (see above speed walking comment)

Lino Garced, Jarod Feerst, and Cristopher Maccord won their 27 arrow knockout match over the trio from Anastasiana. Then they lost to Milchama by one heart-breaking point before winning the bronze over Kelse in an easy match. The women’s team lost to Bedistan in the knockouts.

Andreas Mbamalu surprised everyone as he qualified in the men’s 1500m event.

Day 18.

Celine Leverone had a great day today. Early this morning she learned what a bike was and how to ride it without falling off. Then came the cross country race - amazingly she finished with a Silver medal. In a post-race interview she attributed this feat to not knowing where the brakes were located.

Harland Liebherr and Arlie Bohnker had the displeasure of facing each other in archery today. Liebherr beat Bohnker by 4 points on his way to taking home a bronze medal.

Mbamalu continued to impress with the top time in the men’s 1500m semifinal. Iesha Mcgaffey watched everyone but Rivka Dakan of ASMV finish in front of her in the women’s 1500m semi. At least we beat someone.

Equestrian events got underway in the form of Dressage. Glady Houey and Tarah Lanie both finished mid-pack with good scores while Santana Japak should have considered another line of work.

And with these results, you will find that we no longer sit at the bottom of the medal table. At least for now.

I'm Feeling Very Ylompic Today
Or at least kind of Aluminum :p

This is Bryce Favre catching you up on all your Ylompic News.

Day 14

Ela Schoneman and Dane Giebner earned Bronze in the Tornado Sailing event. Ellaina Bradbury and Payne Harfeldt also earned bronze in the 49er competition.

Fencing saw a major upset as our own Octavio Darke won Gold in the sabre event. Yes - that is correct. Gold with a sword. Unbelievable. Natalya Lappa should have just stayed home in the women’s sabre event.

Brain Dellapaolera showed little ability in the men’s cycling sprint event as he finished dead last. Elinore Seilheimer fared much better as she turned in the second fastest time in the women’s sprint.

Ewa Matier won the second women’s sailboard race (Mistral) and sits in 3rd overall very early in the competition.
Robby Katos lost to Earl Marl of Milchama in the Heavyweight boxing semis.

The women’s basketball team rose to the tough challenge made by Milchama and pulled away at the end for a hard-earned 77-62 win. The team is now 4-0 and looking like the team to beat.
Women’s volleyball also reached 4-0 with a very good win against a pesky team from Allanea.
Women’s Beach Volleyball saw ASMV 1 reach 5-0 with a victory over Schiavonia 1

Day 15

Cycling saw Elinore Seilheimer turn in a time of 11.08 as she lost to Frreda Andemeet of Spruitland. The time would have been enough to win two of the other quarterfinal heats, but alas that did not happen.

Flatwater Canoeing saw Bennett Krumvieda move into the final of the men’s FC-1 1000m event.
Whitewater canoeing was also alive today. Both Cyrus Bula and Lon Fenney qualified in men’s Single Slalom competition. Cyril Poppenhagen qualified in the men’s single slalom Kayak event.

Boxing saw lightweight Genaro Unch lose to Phillip Amiens in the semis.

ASMV Softball earned a qualifying spot with a 6-2 win over Allanea.

Day16

Bobby Katos defeated hometown favorite Morris Alvino for Heavyweight Boxing Bronze.

Thaddeus Svenningsen reached the finals of the men’s 200m track event. Rod Hempfling sailed through to the 800m men’s final. Tari Boxton, Blondell Olszowka, Toi Coltman, and Nenita Malaterre qualified with a piss poor time in the women’s 4x100 relay and hope to do much better in the next round.

Ewa Matier and Beulah Toya now sit 4th and 5th and in good shape in the women’s Mistral Sailboard event.

Arron Yoeckel and Herschel Westerfeld reached the finals of the FK-2 500m canoeing event.

Day 17

Thaddeus Svenningsen ran just well enough for Aluminum in the men’s 200m event and Rod Hempfling equaled that feat in the men’s 800m. The women’s 4x100 relay team solidified an Aluminum day for us on the track.

Genaro Unch competed for Bronze in lightweight boxing, but guess what, another Aluminum.

Women’s beach volleyball saw ASMV-1 remain undefeated as they knocked off Casari-2 and will now face Kelse in the quarterfinals. ASMV-2 lost to Rejistania in straight sets.

Day 18

Annit Siccotti continued the Aluminum trend byt collecting it in the women’s long jump competition.

Whitewater canoeing saw ASMV take home Bronze and Aluminum as Cyrus Bula and Lon Feny finished 3rd and 4th in the Men’s single event.

Herschel Orejel and Bennett Krumvieda reached the finals of canoeing’s FC-2 500m and 1000m events. Kristeen Zogopoulos and Shondra Matayoshi reached the finals of the women’s FC-2 500m, while Lange Harcey and Bebe Papay reached the women’s 100m FC-2 final.

ASMV men’s Beach Volleyball saw ASMV-1 smash Krytenia 21-4, 21-5 and move on to face Schiavonia in the quarterfinals.

The women’s cricket event saw our softball rejects lose to Anastasiania by 43 runs. But now they play Casari for Bronze and could pull a medal. That is better than the softball team that rejected them will probably do.

Riding To Gold?
Starblaydia firmly in the driving, er, saddle

Everyone - well, in the more optimistic parts of Starblaydia, at least - is pretty much expecting to see Team Gold in the Three Day Eventing, and 1-2-3s in Individiual Eventing, Dressage and Showjumping for Starblaydia.

Yeah right. But you have to aim for the moon. At least if you miss a little you'll still hit the stars. Witness the domination of Rejistania in the more rythmic and creative events, or Spruitland when a bike has been involved. Apparently those Kazoo types are good at Track and Field, too, whoever the hell they are.

So, with the cultural history of a nation forged in ancient wars resulting in some rich people poncing around on horses for bit of metal on strings, Starblaydia's ancient knights can surely be proud of the legacy they've borne. Ahem.

On the first day of the Three-Day Eventing, Dressage, Starblaydia's entire squad scored highly with the judges, with the top-three scores counted for team purposes, Starblaydia's top three were all in the top six. The ladies, Meredith David and Jillian Diamond, were placed second and third behind a solitary Schiavonian.

A firm lead of five points over the tightly-packed Schiavonian and Chicanadan eventing teams (a tight pack of two, you know). Competitors from Andossa Se Mitrin Vega, Dorian and Sonya and Spruitland are taking part, with even Schiavonian Royalty represented in the form of His Royal Highness Prince Giraldo.

Starblaydia's commoners, however, will be aiming to outpace the Islands' Prince and every other competitor to bring home a haul of medals.

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Sports Section

Milchama continue medal rampage

While it might not have been as many medals as before, Milchama has continued our rise up the medal charts with two medals today. The medals were won by Matt Merrigan in the men's long jump and by Katarina Stevens got gold in women's golf. We also got two aluminum that were won by Nadia Kotek in the women's 400 meter hurdles and by Judy Milbourn in the women's triple jump. These two medals put us one behind Starblaydia in over all medal count.
Now onto the event by event report:

First we go to athletics where Matt Merrigan won a bronze medal in the men's long jump. Merrigan got off to a wonderful start as he was first in the qualifiers for the long jump getting his best jump at a great 8.52 meters. Then in the finals he could not repeat his great performace as Kazooian? Stuart Killian and Bedistani Trevor Martin outdid him. Trevor Golub also made it to finals. Then the women's long jump saw Kimberly Lisby and Emily Carbin get to finals. Lisby just missed getting an aluminum medal as Annit Siccote from ASMV outjumped her by .02 of a meter. Nick Vorhis qualified in third position for the men's triple jump but did not medal as he lost and came in the midpack. Julius Capinan also qualified for finals. All 3 Milchamian competitors qualified for the women's triple jump. Judy Milbourn was the middle competitor in the qualifiers but in the finals she made her mark as she outjumped the top Milchamian in qualifiers Justian Kampf and got the bronze medal. The other Milchamian competitor in finals was Nelli Stock. Marshall Musil qualified for finals in the men's 1500M run. He was one of the top qualifiers in the first round but fell to midpack today. We hope for a better performance tommorow. Finally all 3 Milchamian women failed to advance in the women's 1500M final.

From there we turn too women's soccer where the Milchamian women lost to Casari 3-0. Elana Kilinin and goalie Allana Tarley could not stop the relentless Casaran attack as the Casarans scored 3 goals in the second half to win.

Now we go to golf where Katarina Stevens won a gold medal in women's golf. Coming into the final round Stevens was one stroke back of Schiavone Carol Miller but Stevens had a tournament best closing round 65 while Miller melted under the pressure shooting a 70 in the final round to get a silver. We also want to point out here that we got 23 medals after today not 22.

The final thing we have to report on is archery where we failed as no Milchamian made it past the first round. Bloody failures.

Also Collonie got two more medals both bronzes in canoeing to improve their medal count to 8 but they are still 1 of 3 nations without a gold medal.

Capital District Standard

Day 19 Recap at the 1934 Summer Ylompics

Athletics

The Kodiaks finished up their run in the Field events, only making one final amongst their events and failing to make a run at the medals. It is a helpful sign, however, as the Kodiaks continue to work on stregthening their squad to make a run at the medals come the Summer Games.

Equestrian

The Kodiaks' medal chances on the horsies improved with Gina Falkan's victory in the Cross Country to push up to Third Place in the individual Eventing medals run. The Kodiaks Eventing team still sits third, well behind the Starblaydi team and probably out of the Ylompic Championship medal (only three teams are competing, so no Bronze medal for the team).

Team Sports

The Womens Football team continue to streak towards a gold, handidly beating Bedistan 3-1 to move on to the medal round. They now have a semifinal date with fellow Gold Medal favorites Starblaydia. The Kodiaks, looking to impress on the eve of the first Womens World Cup, continue to be the class act of the field, but will not easily detered from a Gold Medal.

Also looking for a Gold Medal is the Mens Rugby Sevens squad, who held on to beat Krytenia 18-11 to guarantee at least a Silver medal, heading into the Finals against Starblaydia as well. The Kodiaks easily won their Qualifiers match aganst the squad, but should avoid being too cocky if they hope to win a Gold.

Overall Count

Thanks to an All Around Gold in Rhythmic Gymnastics, Womens Sprint, a surprising Bronze in the Womens 4x100 as well as several Canoe medals, the team is at 15 medals (8 Gold, 1 Silver, 7 Bronze) with 7 Fourths giving them 22 for the team. The COC is definitly pleased that the team has met expectations by getting to the 15 medals and still have plenty of shots for more medals with several days remaining!

Rocca On a Roll
4 Games, 4 Goals As Starblaydi Women enter Semis

Janica Rocca is one of the less well-known names in Starblaydia's Women's Football Team as they conquer all before them in the Ylompic Games. Collonie, Schiavonia, Krytenia and even hosts Casari have all fallen before the white tide and they all have something else in common: Janica Rocca has scored a goal against all of them. As the striking partner of Dasha Tolkacheva, one is never really in the spotlight, but when you've scored more goals than she has the press suddenly come a-flocking.

Starblaydia's Women's team, when you look a little closer, is actually a sports writer's dream. Firstly, this team can really be said to be Cherry Garcia's own side. The thirty-three year old made her name as Starblaydia's first ever female player, the first in Liga Starblaydia, too, and now is Captaining only the second ever Women's team in Starblaydi history, the first having played in the Kaza '08 Olympic Games.

The 'Garcia Effect' has also totally taken hold. Most of the rest of the team were barely children when Cherry made her name in Under-21 World Cup 18 and then AOCAF10 as a teenager. More than half of the starting eleven cite Cherry Garcia as their footballing hero, they player they all wanted to be like as they grew up.

Don't forget Jade Matranga, the fourth of the great Matranga sporting dynasty that has included Starblaydi legends Aiden, Nick and Itechton. She scored a hat-trick in the first match against Collonie and is, as usual, at the heart of Starblaydia's attacking intentions. What about the 'keeper, Paola Mendez, just twenty years old and called up from the substitutes bench in the first match after thirty-three year-old Theresa Graziola was injured by a skill-less Collonie striker, out for the rest of the tournament.

Oh yes, and there's a Di Bradini in the squad, too. Tabitha, the grand-daughter of Roberto Di Bradini, who is, of course, the younger brother of World Cup Committee President Simeone. She plays at right full-back, by the way. Marissa Cortez, Magdalena Ruiz and Tara Niodonna also have impressive futures ahead of them, but for now this entire team - Cherry's Team - have a gold medal to go and win. Their Semi-Final barrier? Chicanada, prospective hosts of the first Women's World Cup. With the other match being Liverpool England versus Spruitland, one can quite easily predict that the winners of the Ylompics can come from this side of the draw. Don't rule out the female Terminators, though, apparently they have plasma guns in their arms.

Don't confuse reality with fiction, of course, but Starblaydia's challenge for the championship is all truth.

ANN News Network

Good day, dear viewers!

This is Sara Jane Jacobs, ANN Sports, bringing you the latest news from the Ylompics. So, as you already know, we got beaten in the team sports. In all the team sports. We even lost to Bedistan in basketball – shortly after losing to five-foot tall Rejistanian basketball players. You may make of it what you will, but I make of it one thing: Allanea is not born for team sports.

Now are the good news, dear viewers: Tomorrow is day 21 of the Olympics, and the Allaneans enter a field on which they can finally prevail, namely that of shooting. Allanea has long been known at home and abroad as a “nation of riflemen”, and now is the time to finally prove that record. It is rumoured north of fifteen million Universal Standard dollars in sponsorships and training were poured into the athleted in the field. Among these are world-class shooters Kassandra Pink – the lady who starred in the Ruger Ram advertisement last year – Geralt Ginrich, the triple Kalandis state champion, and Patrick Feiglin, the national gold medalist, from last year.

As of now, the Allanean atheletes are somewhere in Casari, probably training hard for the Big Day, trying to justify all that sponsorship cash with hard work. It remains merely to wish them luck, so they they may bring Allanea medals.

This was Sara Jane Jacobs, ANN Sports.

We report.

You decide.



Allanean Ylompic Village

“Well, guys and gals, here's how this will go down,” spoke Geralt Ginrich, while brushing the bore of his FP-60 (http://www.haemmerli.ch/index.php?id=191&L=1), careful not to scratch it. “Tomorrow, the shooting will start, literally.”

Patrick Feiglin smiled, rcking the pump on his modified Remington 870 skeet gun. “Yeah. I can tell you know, some people will be really surprised. Remember, in most countries, shooting is not seen as an imporant sport or anything.”

Kassandra Pink smiled gayly as she came out of the shower, covered only by a towel. “You know guys, I'm sure we're going to do good... perhaps we should do some celebrating, ahead of time?”

Feiglin put the shotgun down, smiling happily. “Sounds like a good idea to me, Kass. Want to join in, Ger-Gin?”

“Sure.”

The towel dropped.

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Sports Section

Milchama pick up two more medals

In what was such a quiet day at the Ylompics that we are not even going to do an event by event report, Milchama picked up two medals a gold and a bronze in athletics. Marshall Musil picked up the bronze in the men's 1500M run as he could not repeat his prelim performance finishing in third with a nice bronze medal. We would also take this time to apologize to Casaran officials as one of our reporters has been fired for telling us Milchama won three gold/silver/bronze medals yesterday. The gold medal was won by Brittney Irons in the women's pole vault as she outjumped the competition in the finals after barely qualifying in the qualifiers she had a career best 5.00 meter jump which was enough to beat a Bedistani with a weird name to win the gold medal. That gives Milchama 24 medals which is still one behind Starblaydia but I think we will get ahead of them soon enough.

The only other thing of note is that doubles tennis has started but no Milchamian teams played today they will begin their quest tommorow.

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f141/DarthBunny/ns_stuff/sg-title.png
Bringing you news from the past... This time

Day 8 & 9 [OOC: I am a bit behind... News travels slow in Uhuh-Topia and Uhuh-Ropa ;)]

It's raining medals

Tyrellia - Medals. One silver, four bronze. That pretty much sums up these last two days for the Ropa-Topian athletes at the Ylompics in Tyrellia. On the eight day of these Ylompic Games, the medals went to the swimmers: silver for the men in the 4x100 meters (the women finished at a fifth place in the women's event), and bronze in the 50 meters freestyle, for Lars Sepers and for Jessica Rubik.
The day ended with The Kazoo Person [Editor: this means someone from The Kazoo Peoples, although the reporter made this up himself] table-tennis player Ben Wee-Kiong defeating Corneel Marsman in 7 sets, and in judo, Saskia Verhaegen was defeated by Carita Lilliewall from Anastiania. Both those winners from day eight went on to be defeated the next day, earning them a silver medal each.
But there were medals for both losers as well: Verhaegen won the bronze medal by defeating Ariddian Julie Lanza, and Marsman needed only 5 sets to defeat Matrin Baggaley from Krytenia, adding another bronze medal for Uhuh-Ropa and Uhuh-Topia.
[Editor: There may also have been a couple of football matches, but the reporter said that Klungelaer has asked him not to say anything about the ties against Liverpool England (men's) and Rejistania (women's) in his report, so the reporter didn't include anything about those matches. We respect Mr. Klungelaer's opinion, so we won't mention that we again didn't win with football. Er... Oops.]


Day 10 & 11

Klungelaer taken to hospital

Tyrellia/Ropadam - Minister Klungelaer and chairman of the Ropa-Topian Sports Alliance was taken to the hospital after he collapsed when he heard that the men's football team had lost from The Kazoo Peoples in Tyrellia. This happened during an argument with Defense Minister Snoodaert who claimed that Klungelaer should grow up and that football is just a game.
After Klungelaer fell mysteriously ill, Snoodaert handed in his resignation to King James while Klungelaer was taken to a nearby (and formerly top-secret) military hospital.
Uhuh-Ropean government officials have asked this newspaper not to dwell on that topic too long and just continue to report about the Ylompics instead, like the tennis match between Hugo Coonincx and Chae Jong-u from Bedistan, which Coonincx lost by the way.
Of course. The people of the Allied States of Ropa-Topia are far more interested in hearing how one of our tennis players was defeated at the Ylompics than some news about a mysterious illness and some (formerly) top-secret military hospital.


Day 12 & 13 - Not a lot happened really at the Ylompics; for Uhuh-Ropa & Uhuh-Topia that is

What hospital?

Ropadam - The hospital where Minister Klungelaer was taken a day ago has vanished. Even Klungelaer himself denies he was taken to a hospital and that it was just a joke to get people to forget about any bad results in any football matches.


Day 14

Klungelaer resigns

Tyrellia/Isle of Uhm - After a humiliating performance of both Ropa-Topian football teams at the Ylompic Games in Tyrellia, Chairman of the Ropa-Topian Sports Alliance Ferdinand Klungelaer has decided to step down. Though he denies that the results of the football teams (like today's tie against Anastiania) had anything to do with his decision, the avid football fan Klungelaer couldn't give any other reason why he had reached this decision. He is still denying that he has been in any hospital recently.
Until a new chairman will be elected, vice-chairman Tomas Kroon (a member of the Uhuh-Topian Imperial Sports Association) will take over from Klungelaer.

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Sports Section

Milchama get sweep in hammer throw and do well in other events

Well we missed yesterday which we apologize for, but man was yesterday an exciting day or what? First in the men's discuss Dale Flinn threw it far enough and it landed well as he got a bronze medal. Then the men's hammer throw came along. We were all hoping for a medal but were not expecting what would come next... We'll let announcer Thomas Barnett describe it.

"Well here we are at the Men's hammerthrow final. Milchama has done well in with this event before and we are expecting to do well again. Rader Martin will be the first Milchamian to go and his throw is far pretty deep its an 86. The farthest throw so far today... Now the next Milchamian is Rodney Rader. Despite having a similar name to Martin, Rader has never really performed well and people said he was lucky to make the team, well he's trying to prove them wrong and uncorks a beautiful throw right on that's an 85.68 meter throw. That will put him in second place behind Rader Martin... Now comes the final Milchamian to the event Donny Hackman. Hackman was considered the top Milchamian hammerthrowman but has recently fallen on hard times and is looking to the Ylompics to ressurect his career. Here comes his throw and it's a good one and it'll just beat Rader's at 85.85 for second place behind Martin... Now the final throw to be done by Spruit favorite Jim-Bob Van Grunters. Van Grunters, needs to beat an 85.68 to take the sweep away from Milchama and the throw its online AND IT'S SHORT! Milchama have swept the hammerthrow competition!!!!!!! This is the second sweep of the Ylompic games the only other ones being in the men's gymnastics all around by the Rejistanians. I don't belive it! This is incredible!!! A truly great moment for Milchamian sports history!!!!" (yeh overexaggrations)

Now onto the rest of the sports in day 21 and 22. The Fighters/Water Fighters or what not all took home medals. The first was in men's hockey where the Milchama Fighters beat the Kazoo Peoples in the bronze medal game 3-0 to take the bronze. The goalie Elivs Shapiro was excellent as he stopped all 22 Kazoo shots. Marcus Lintney scored two goals for the Fighters to secure the victory. Then the Milchamians won the goal medal in men's water polo as we beat Liverpool England 16-11. The strategy employed by coach Ilya Flores worked to perfection as the Milchamian offense outscored the Terminators and beat them down thouroughly to secure the win and the gold medal.

Now we move to tennis where one of our doubles teams have advanced past the semifinals while one floundered and will play for the bronze medal against Liverpool England. As for the team that succeded the men's team of Holfach and Miller beat the Bedistani's Bordello and Hook in the 3 sets. The first set went to the Milchamians after two breaks from Miller secured the set. The next set looked bad for them as the Bedistanis sweeped right through it winning 6-0. The final set though the Bedistanis looked tired and could not keep up with the relentless hitting and went down 6-2.

From there we finish Day 21 with team sports where the women's softball beat Rejistania 3-2 on a 3 run homer from Kelly Windash, who has been the star of the team, secured advancement. Windash also pitched the game after the 5th inning and allowed no runs to be scored by the Rejistanians. We also lost in soccer 1-0 to Liverpool England on a late goal by some LEish guy.

Day 22: Medal events.

Ken Gaver got silver in the marathon as he barely outlasted Rejistanian Ivelmore Jen to finish second. Casey Fouse also did well as he got the aluminum medal as Jen overtook him in the stretch run. That got us to 32 medals which right now puts us tied with The Kazoo Peoples and one behind Starblaydia. We need some good medal results tommorow to take over the Starblaydians.

In track the only thing worth reporting on is that we got 3 men to the final in the men's 3000 meter steeple chase whatever the hell that is.

Since we already reported on tennis this brings us to team sports where we did really really well. First in baseball some great pitching by James Rickey got the Warriors the victory over Bedistan. Rickey went 8 inning giving up only two runs to secure the win. The offense was provided by Micheal Flinter and Barrett Hamilton who each hit a 2 run homer. Thom Miller also helped as he doubled in Yonatan Horowitz in the 8th to get the 5th Milchamian run. Then in women's hockey our women showed the superiority of Milchama as they beat Collonie 8-1 in women's hockey. The spectacular offense was led by Melanie Marcos who scored 4 goals. The other semifinal between Chicanada and Schiavonia was actually which leads us to believe that we are a shoo in for the gold medal. Then finally in women's water polo the Water Fighters scored 3 touchdown, oh wait I mean 21 goals, against the Algal States to get into the final. The game was utter domination from the first thru third quarters and when the Water Fighters decided to put in subs in the 4th quarter after lead 21-1! the States made a comeback as they scored 6 times but it was not enough as the Fighters still won easily. Again since Bedistan barely beat Kelse we again expect an easy victory for the girls in this event as well. Just a quick side note we are playing Liverpool England in the baseball final. Manager Jack Yosefon says, "We may have lost to them in pool play but that doesn't matter because this time there is a gold medal on the line and we can do it.

Quickly as well Collonie has gotten its first gold medal of the games and now has 14 medals.

King Alfons had guts, you had to give him that. Forty two kilometers is a hell of a distance to run, but His Majesty wasn’t impressed. As soon as the gun went off, he took position at the head of the pack as if he had done nothing else all his life.

Olav Nett, the Minister of Sports, was able to witness it from the front row. He had been granted an official mountain bike and was allowed to ride alongside King Alfons, an honor the Minister really hadn’t asked for, but could hardly refuse. Olav watched with a grim look on his face how His Majesty broke away from the pack, taking ten meters on the other athletes, several of which found the time to roll their eyes at each other.

The King’s triumphant grin faded fast, however. After a few hundred meters, the Royal Chest started heaving, and the ten meter lead started shrinking to nine, eight, seven…

“How much further?” the King managed to gasp. Olav winced. This was gonna be a long day.

“Forty one kilometers and eight hundred meters, Your Highness.”

King Alfons grunted – clearly not his preferred response, but a Royal Curse would’ve taken a bit too much energy. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the lead runners approach, glanced again… With his lead down to less than two meters, His Majesty yelled “Awww!” and clumsily tumbled onto the ground – in that order. The Royal Miter skidded across the asphalt. The King rolled onto his back, grabbed his left ankle and pulled his knee up to his chest, moaned, then grabbed his right ankle.

“He tripped me!” His Majesty wailed. “That Starblaydi dude tripped me!”

The other runners quietly circled around the fallen King, respectfully saving their chortles and chuckles for after the first turn. A Tyrellian official started to approach, then changed his mind and moved on up the road. Alfons looked around dejectedly.

“Olav, what’s going on? Why are they not stopping?”

“I’m… not sure, Your Highness.”

“Dammit! I would surely have won if they hadn’t tripped me!”

“Undoubtedly, Your Highness. Shall I call for an ambulance? We can get you checked out and be back on time for the women’s beach volleyball semi finals.”

“Yes… yes, that sounds like a good idea…” While Olav took out his cell phone, quite relieved that the event had gone by a lot smoother than he had thought, King Alfons crawled to his feet, limped his left leg towards his miter, picked it up, and limped his right leg back.

“Olav, why are those people laughing at me?” The Minister looked up. The Casaran onlookers by the side of the road were not hiding their amusement.

“Ignore them, Your Highness. They’re just commoners.”

“Quite,” His Majesty agreed, but he narrowed his eyes as a few of the spectators started imitating his stumble and limping around in great commedia dell’arte style.

“Hold that call,” he said, and Olav stopped talking to the emergency operator mid-sentence. “They’re making fun of me, Olav. They don’t think I can do it.”

“Well you can’t, Your Highness,” the Minister said, then quickly added “with that ankle, I mean. It looks terribly swollen.”

The King lifted his left foot, turned it around, tried standing on it. “It’s feeling a lot better already,” he said. “I think I’ll continue the race.”

“But Your Highness! You might do permanent damage to your ankle. And what about the beach volleyball match?”

The King stood silent for a moment. “You don’t think I can do it either, do you, Olav?”

Olav swallowed. His King was looking at him in a way he had never done before. It was a sad, fragile, yes, almost human look, to which the Minister didn’t quite know how to react.

“It’s… The marathon takes a lot of practice, Your Highness,” he finally managed to say. “Real practice, that is. Actual running. Not just stretching exercizes followed by a three hour massage.” His unexpected honesty made the Minister extremely awkward, but Alfons just nodded.

“So even my own citizens think I’m a joke,” the King said quietly. “Can’t have that.” And he started running again.

When Olav caught up with him on the bicycle, the King didn’t look at him. “Go watch beach volley, Olav. I’ll be fine,” he managed between barely-controlled breaths. Olav didn’t respond, but didn’t turn around either.

The first hour or so, the spectators alongside the road still predominantly laughed when the King passed by, his face a bright shade of red, contrasting with his miter, one sock pulled up to just below the knee, the other drooped down to his ankle. But when he neared, and then passed, the ten kilometer mark in his slow but steady pace, the laughter started to disappear quickly.

Around the fifteenth kilometer, the King got his first bad case of the cramps and had to start walking for a while, but when he heard that the first competitor had crossed the finish line, he picked up the pace again with renewed determination.

Nearing the thirtieth kilometer, after three more cramp interruptions, he started having trouble running in a straight line, and looked like he was about to pass out. Olav broke the silence for the first time, asked if he was alright, but His Majesty didn’t respond. He fixed his face into a firm scowl and upped the pace slightly.

At kilometer 34, His Majesty collapsed a first time, quickly getting up and resuming his run, though now with a slight limp. The slight limp turned into a severe limp. At kilometer 36, he collapsed a second time, and this time it took him a few seconds and a lot more effort to get back onto his feet. Olav took some more distance to quietly confirm that an ambulance was standing by, very nearby but unseen.

At kilometer 39, the King fell down a third time, and stayed motionless. Olav hurried off his bike, but when he tried to help him up, His Majesty pushed him away. With a beastial grunt he started running again, or something like it, in the direction he had come from. Animated spectators waved him back in the right direction.

The last kilometers just seemed to last forever. Olav remained on his bicycle, but had to stop pedaling and put a foot on the ground. Alfons zigzagged all over the road, collapsed several more times, his legs barely able to support him, but struggled on ahead.

After nearly six hours, more than three hours after the medal ceremony, His Majesty King Alfons I of Spruitland, pale as a ghost, finally stumbled across the finish line, under loud cheers and applause of the crowd. Exactly twenty centimeters across the line, the King dropped to his knees, puked out a mixture of slime and blood, and passed out. As paramedics rushed over, Olav Nett looked at his fallen King, and remembered that he was proud to be a Spruitlander.

ANN Sports

Good day, and this is Mariette Manger, with finally good news from the Ylompics! Today, the Allanean team had brought home a number of medals, notably four gold medals: Sanis Denny, in 10-meter Air Pistol, Ripley Jones, in 20-meter rapid fire pistol...

In the suburbs of Liberty City, Richard Denny, an owner of a small motel, dropped his remote. His customers turned to him as they heard the loud clunking noise of the remote hitting the floor. He screamed. “Martha! Come here! Look, it's Sanis! Our Sanis! He won the gold!”

Geralt Ginrich received a gold medal in 50-meter pistol...

On campus at the Deriksburg First University, Geralt's sister smiled happily, looking at the image on the screen of her 5G cellular phone. “I knew you'd make it big, little brother,” - whispered Professor Nina Ginrich. “I just knew it.”

And finally, in women's 20-meter pistol, bringing the fourth gold medal to the United States is Siham Koresh.

In a small Branch Davidian community perched somewhere on the shore of Axackal, Siham Koresh's family – all fifty-six of them – yelled and shouted in joy.

This is not all, of course. Linda Kohen has received a silver medal in Women's 10m Air Rifle, with Sandra Stallone getting the bronze. In Women's 10 meter Air Pistol, we cornered the Bronze and Aluminium...

Rabbi Yonatan Kohen smiled to his family as he prayed, repeating the ancient words that passed down from father to son through the fall of both Temples, through countless exiles, through endless repression, and that were said exactly on such occasions: “Blessed be the Lord, Our God, King of the World, who had blessed us with His commandment and sustained us to see this day...”

Michael D. Barnes, Howard Thames, and Ahmad Abergil were among the silver medalists today as well...

In Daikatana, Sajeda Abergil raised her hands happily. “Look, children! Praise Allah, for your father has done well! Now we will be wealthier then you can imagine!”