And the winner is....

Jingjing takes it! With an Olympic Record 474 Superpower Points, Emma IS the winner of the Olympic Supergreat Fun Pool Time.

The Olympic Pool rookie, John, turned in a great pillar-to-post performance to take the Silver Medal ahead of the only other researcher, Scott, this quadrannual pool's Bronze Medallist.

You three will be taking home the big bucks. Your cheques for the full winning amounts (minus administration fees) will be sent as soon as you've submitted Prize Claim Application Forms W-3 and W-4, presented your cases to the SGFPT Prize Claimation Committee and awaited the necessary 90-day appeal period.

The two fabulous McDonald's Mascot Mugs will be delivered to the Official Honorable Mention Award Near-Winner, Meggy M. Congrats on being just good enough to not win anything of any real value.

Jubiliant cheers go out to Laura and Nicole as well for correctly guessing the number of SCANDALS! We extinguished the flame with a total of 9 global embarrassments. Three fewer than that achieved on my first real date in high school.

As for the rest of you (us), I suggest that you take a few moments to post polite messages of congratulations to the winners while contemplating why you didn't take the time to actually figure out who might win some of the damn events. I don't think you were given a single Taikwando contender...I mean, c'mon. Are you all that rich that you don't even want to try to win? Did you think you were going to get a charitable donation receipt? (You are not)

Now, on to our Biggest Loser (TM, thanks NBC). Izzy, you really sucked eggs, didn't you? Although it was great to see you pick up a point for Dong Dong's trampoline bronze, it seems that your strategy to pick the athlete with the greatest name and not the greatest training regime (or narcotic supplier) failed to meet the minimum Olympic qualifying standard.

As made clear in the rules and regulations, the last place finisher of this pool will be required to sport (pun intended) a henna tattoo, as selected by the other contenders, in a public place of the body for no less than one week.

Non-loser competitors: please post your suggestions, with doodles if possible, on the blog at your earliest convenience.

Thanks to all of you for donating copious amounts of time and Olympic Spirit. We'll see you in Vancouver, re-incarnated as an Inukshuk in just 20 months or so!

With great respect,

Huanhuan

The Final Tally:

Emma, 474
John, 432
Scott, 414
Megan M., 382
Laura, 377 (includes 10 SPPs for SCANDAL! Guess)
Grant, 368
Lisa, 359
Laurie, 359
Shelli, 326
Jennifer, 319
Megan W., 301
Luke, 300
Mark, 299
Nicole, 296 (includes 10 SPPs for SCANDAL! Guess)
The Bell Family, 292
Colin, 276
Alli, 262
Craig, 232
Izzy, 146

SCANDAL! Ruling - Final Day

Moosemoose thinks this may be the final scandal, however, the day is not yet over and surely something scandalous will occur during the closing ceremonies?!

So, this kick in the face... Moosemoose hopes that by 2012, we will see judges wearing face masks and carrying mace to protect themselves from such vicious attacks. Being disqualified from the Olympics for over-sitting your time-out is a pretty crappy way to go but seriously, dude, buy a stopwatch or something!

Official ruling: SCANDAL!

Scandalous Kick!

Oh my, check out this kick to the referree's face.

MooseMoose, this is SCANDALOUS with a capital "S", No?

http://www.nbcolympics.com/taekwondo/news/newsid=251304.html#kicked+out+cuban+banned+outburst

Day 14 - Emma hits the IV-century Mark

Emma has crossed the 400 point mark for the first time in her pooling history making her the greatest pooling Olympian in history, according to some. Her sister, Izzy, on the other hand continues to struggle leading this reporter to wonder how she ever met the A standard to qualify for this competition.

It looks like the three medals have been all but spoken for, but the battle for the honorable mention position, and two remarkably heavy McDonalds glasses, rages on late in the games. Megan has been outclassing the best-of-the-rest field consistently over the past few days, but Laura, Grant and Lisa remain nipping at her heals with many medals still to come.

Day 14 Standings:

Emma, 401
John, 376
Scott, 349
Megan M., 326
Grant, 315
Laura, 314
Lisa, 306
Laurie, 297
Shelli, 275
Jennifer, 274
Mark, 264
The Bell Family, 264
Megan W., 260
Luke, 259
Nicole, 242
Colin, 236
Alli, 233
Craig, 195
Izzy, 124

Day 13 Results

The field continues to spread out and it looks like the fiercest battle will be for fourth place (which comes with at least TWO Mcdonalds Olympic Glasses, perhaps more if we are able to find stores that still have them in stock). Grant and Laura has been tight for a few days now, with Meg keeping a small lead in the battle for Miss Congeniality. Day 14 update will be posted as soon as possible!

Emma, 368
John, 349
Scott, 329
Megan M., 303
Grant, 293
Laura, 291
Lisa, 281
Laurie, 273
Shelli, 253
Mark, 253
The Bell Family, 245
Jennifer, 243
Luke, 242
Megan W., 232
Nicole, 223
Alli, 221
Colin, 221
Craig, 181
Izzy, 116

SCANDAL! Rulings

Two important items to review:

(1) Submitted by Craig: http://olympics.thestar.com/2008/article/481950. Basically, a Canadian taekwondo competitor suspects that the judges purposely failed to score her as they should have, causing her to lose her match. One of the judges happens to be Chinese and the Canadian contingent feels that this judge may have influenced the match scoring to help set up a Chinese competitor in the next round. Moosemoose thinks, however, that it would be difficult for one judge to convince the other 3 to go along with such a dastardly plan (unless they were threatened with reeducation - see below). This is just one of those sports where the human judge factor leaves the results open to conspiracy theories.

Official ruling: No scandal

(2) Blingbling's article about protesters being sent to work camp (see post below). This is sketch, sketch, SKETCHY! Did you see how adorable those two grannies are?? After committing to allow peaceful demonstrations, this one is just plain wrong.

Official ruling: SCANDAL!

Chinese Refusal to allow protests =SCANDAL!

This is scandalous at its utmost. Not only are these two elderly women threatened with "reeducation" in a labor camp, but everyone who has applied for a permit to protest in the "approved" Olympic protest zones has yet to receive an answer from the government. A weak attempt by the Chinese government to appear "fair"....

"Elderly women face 'reeducation' for protest bid"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26305623/