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| 22 March 2007: "A new 'number one contender'" |
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| Movement #1 Hendrik Bunde reported just one PR this week. It's good to see the champ active, because #2 Aron Langerak has just snuck past #3 Richard Karlsson to see the title just 0.1 AF pts in front of his fingertips. Of course, Hendrik is no stranger to losing his #1 spot, and he's bounced back every time someone decided to challenge him for it. It would be wrong to count Richard out of it, too, because Richard's fingertips are only 0.06 AF pts behind Aron's fingertips. It's pretty close. Even Aron's AF cut this week (0.18) was more than the distance between Richard's fingertips and Hendrik. Supposing Aron does reach #1 (a "only his first time?" laugh is heard coming from the other two), Hendrik is still the only God ranked player in ARR. Aron's fingertips are 0.04 short of that goal. And Richard's fingertips are 0.04 behind Aron's fingertips. French leader #7 Jean-Christophe Lacastaignerate made it past #8 Marius Mollenhauer this week, but he was himself passed by #6 Marijn Jongbloed. Marijn, the 3rd ranked Netherlands player, became Myth+ in the process. Both J-C and Marijn have passed a handful of legends in #8 Marius, #9 Raphael and #10 Olivier. #5 Vince has a strong lead on both of them. Close behind, #11 Konsta Jukka has just reduced his AF to sub-10 and is approaching the same gauntlet of legends. He is 0.5 AF pts behind Olivier and a top-10 spot. #26 Marc Schwartz has already got ahead of fellow countryman #28 Mike Hartjens. His next target, #25 Luke Mulders, should be no problem. Look out for a rank promotion, too... #35 Andrew Math cut 3 AF pts and moved up three places. He is now one spot behind ex-champ #34 Stefan van Dijke. Andrew reached Titan A last week, but this week's 12 PRs already bring him half-way to Titan+. #51 Andre Overesch focused his efforts mostly on Mario Circuit over the week. He passed #52 Martin Rudmarker, who last week had lost his top-50 finish due to Andrew Math's return. Andre now needs to pass #50 Stefan Baczynsky to reach that barrier. There are many active players in the high Titan region. #64 Kevin Borne, a recent recruit for the French army, led the charge with a 9 pt AF cut. He moved up 10 places, managing to pass #65 Alex Hantson but not #63 Joey Michorius. Alex, too, scored a nice cut of 4 AF pts. The Swiss-American passed US players #67 Rob Chastain and #69 Jon Prentice, as well as retired veterans Prashant Bhoja and Paul Regeffe. Frenchman #75 Arnaud Guepey's 5 pt AF cut brought him much closer to rival #71 Florian Chollet, who himself passed another Frenchman this week, #72 Sylvin Rigal. #73 Matt Tanzer squeezed ahead of #74 Marvin Mester with 5 PRs. Among those was Matt's first Titan+ score. #79 Jerrol Hoppenbrouwers is expected to join all those above players in Titan-land any day now. Jerrol settled with passing MKDD pioneer and veteran #75 John Anderson for now. Finally, #85 Jonas Natanaelsson scored more PRs last week than since his comeback started at the end of February. Maybe he is 'warmed up' now. Jonas has many active players ahead of him to keep him busy! #192 Alessandra Martinelli played 60Hz for the past two weeks. A few scores a still missing from a complete set. She is therefore yet unranked, but it looks like she will be around 170th in 60Hz. #160 Andrew Manning had almost run away with the rivalry lead, but I replaced the missing-in-action #266 Ian Smith with #172 Jordon Ward because JW was keeping up with the two Andrews. Jordon's idea of sharing the rivalry records were to grab Andrew's bunch and split them, 12 apiece. #211 Antoine Veylon made a small comeback by reporting 14 PRs. The French player's last submission was in October. He's not far from getting back into the top-200. Meanwhile, #259 Patrick Hewson made a small 0.7 pt AF cut after scoring a one PR in Luigi Circuit. In 50Hz, no less. Clearly imperfect, dude. Recent additions #390 Jeff Lloyd and #395 Colin Stephens made huge PRs all over the board, resulting in a 95 pt and 32 pt AF cut, respectively. Jeff is the second person this month to get a 95pt AF cut. If #348 Ben Wilson is any indication, Jeff should follow up with a 35pt cut. #393 Nick Welch cut 53 AF pts this week to slide between Jeff and Colin. All three players became Adv C and appear hungry for blood. Maybe I should put them in a rivalry and let them duke it out. Since they're already past 400, I can call the rivalry '300'. Who's best prepared for glory? From the rest of the newer players, #423 Kiyan Nourain produces a solid 63 AF pt cut. Kiyan seems to be speeding up rather than slowing down! He started March at nearly 600th and barely Intermediate, but he's already Adv D and looking towards top-400. #509 Joe Anderson should make top-500 by next week, with #519 Tim Jay and #532 John Kenny almost certainly joining him. Honourable mentions: #125 Kevin Sirman, #141 Ahti Lampi. New Records One new record for this week: Bo Garman raced a 33"726 DK Mountain lap in 60Hz. His Myth A time is 0.07 ahead of Hendrik Bunde and Marius Mollenhauer. New Players Welcome to... Otto Knigge, USA (555th, Int C). Euddy Valdez, Dominican Republic (322nd, Adv B). Jason Trulson, USA (~630, Int D). |