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| 08 February 2005: "Lost + Desperate Housewives + OC = fun season of TV" |
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| Movement There was some activity from our top two players this week, but unfortunately both Jonathan Steel and Marius Mollenhauer lost more ground in AF than they managed to make up. On the other hand, #3 Yannick Plebani and #4 Vincent van der Fluit ended the week on a positive note. Vincent is no doubt playing catch-up to Plebani, who passed Stefan van Dijke for the bronze position last month. Yannick had an awesome week, with 7 PRs that resulted in a 0.8 cut from his AF, and his ARR went to 0.96! Vince managed a 0.15 cut, so the gap between him and Yannick has widened a little. Yannick is as far behind Marius as he is ahead of Vince (about 1.5 AF points), so both Yannick and Vince have a difficult task ahead of them if they want to catch up to their next rival up the ladder. #29 Leo Gourmelen had two weeks worth of some strong performances (-4.6 AF) that pushed him passed fellow Frenchman Xavier Valentin and USA-based Yohan Foog. Xavier was quite active in January, and we might hear again from him sometime soon? Yohan has been PRing almost daily the past week, but being a net courier, he also travels a lot (I didn't know Tennesse had so many Knoxes) and we haven't heard from him a few days. But these three guys could make an interesting rivalry, if Leo posted PRs less chunkily to make it more interesting and less frustrating for the other two :) Actually, #35 Cedric Willo is right up with these guys. He's only three places behind Yohan (and six behind Leo), but he's also been PRing on a daily basis. His AF dropped 4.4 points, which means he passed Tristan Eyma. The story of the week is #42 Trystan Pugh. He's been inactive from time trials for quite some time now, and while he does post to Yahoogroups, it's usually PRs on behalf of his friends. That changed when he posted a new set of 32 times, that he got in one day. If you've looked at the charts this week, you'll know why Trystan is raising a few eyebrows - a 53.4 drop in AF, and 3.2 drop in ARR. His new ARR score of 7.12 makes him Hero C (well, hey, he just jumped three ranks). As for the AF, he cut it by more than half, which turns out to be around 53 positions if you do the math. Rumour has it that he's been playing multiplayer for 39 hours a day lately, so when he finally got the obviously-very-clever idea of returning to time trials, he beat all his PRs in the blink of an eye. He managed to pass his friend and Welsh-rival Ian Smyth by a good margin with these, but his other friend, Kyle Clayton, is #25 and Titan D, and quite a ways harder to reach. Not far behind where Trystan stands, is #46 Alejandro Hernandez. He achieved two commendable goals this week. He made up ten places with his -6.4 AF cut to break into the top 50, and also got his first Titan time (a 1'20"9 in MB) :) Alejandro passed a whole bunch of famous gamers with his improvements - Simon Laflamme, Lars Nouwen and Matt Flees. Continuing on from last week, both #85 Piet den Dulk and #86 Gregor Fran passed Bart Savelkouls this week. Piet is still keeping his lead over Gregor, but by only 0.6 points. And last week's newcomer Mike Hartjens had another terrific week catching, moving thirteen places up to #92 with a -15.6 AF cut. By next week, he might reach them... #116 Nathan Cromwell improved half of his records this week, to catch up to #115 Misja Fockens again. Misja joined last week at 121 and knocked Nathan (and even else below) down one place. Nathan made up almost ten places this week to be only one point less than Misja in AF, but they both have identical ARRs. #155 Ivo van der Stap chopped off a third of his AF in his first week on the site, improving 53 positions and 57 AF points. Some of the other more recent players, such as #189 Sam Hoar, #199 Ian Parkhouse, #228 Niels Duijvesteijn are also moving along just fine (-16, -30 and -20 in AF, respectively). New Records A small handful of WRs this week.. The first was from Vincent van der Fluit. He's one of those few crazy people who can stand playing Baby Park. With his advanced 4-MTs-per-straight strategy he lowered the WR to 1'05"088! Two days later, Jonathan Steel tries his luck at regaining this record, but missed out by 0.01. Getting awfully close to the 1'05 barrier now :O Vince made a second, with a Mushroom City lap of 31"499. This beats Jonathan's 31"556, set almost two months ago. A very nice (and fortunate) barrier for Vince. Looks like Marius Mollenhauer just hit the BC course WR, with 2'19"300. Only moments ago, Paul Regeffe was the holder with "307, which he raced about 6 days ago. The top 3 times in BC are just 0.02 apart, but Marius says he missed an MT in his run :crazy: New Players Less new players than last week, but from some more exotic locations this time (mmm, Brazil ;))... Enzio Fruijtier from Netherlands (Beginner A, 308th) Martin Wenzel from Germany (Advanced A, ~149) Raphael Prata from Brazil (Intermediate C, 284th) Martin is missing times for three tracks, which are holding him back on the very edge of Advanced and Expert. He'll be around Expert A or Expert B if he gets some times for those. Martin is Stefan Wenzel's (#57) brother, too! Enzio and Raphael have a full set of times, and will probably improve a lot if they get stuck into watching a few videos. New Movies Paco's site has a few updates this week - Vincent van der Fluit 1'05'15 BP, and also 1'36'4 31'59 MCT. A happy and sad Matthew Hofstad, wearing phallic costumes and just generally breaking things (because we all know that BC can drive you batty). Proof vids from Paul Maes (direct links, .mov format) 1'32'2 DDD, 28'6 DDD, 22'27 PB. Rodolphe Gouet 1'16'1 LC here. David Schiering RR 2'58'2, MB 26'16, WC 2'00'9 here. |