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| 02 April 2007: "A new 'number one conqueror'" |
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| Movement #1 Aron Langerak has taken over the top spot. The crazy Dutchie still continues to score WRs. He got a pair of them this week. #2 Hendrik Bunde answered back with a WR of his own, but his 1 PR wasn't enough to grab back any ground lost in AF. You probably wouldn't have called Aron being the top player by the end of the 1st quarter a month ago. But he did it, so.. yeah. There's an upcoming POQ vote, and Aron's timing is impeccable. The current AF standings are Aron 2.50, Hendrik 2.63, Richard 2.78. In the other stats: Hendrik is still the only God player, if only because Aron has 0.03 to go; Richard and Hendrik are slightly ahead in PRSR; Richard has a 1s lead in combined total times over Hendrik, who in turn is 1s ahead of Aron. Aron's lead certainly isn't big and, historically, the Dutch don't have a good record of keeping the MKDD #1 for long periods of time. Will Aron fall victim to tradition? Maybe. But Aron is in fine form and setting PRs regularly, so we'll wait and see. #4 Andreas Rudmarker reported a mixed bag of 8 PRs, ranging from G+8 to Myth D. A little inconsistent, perhaps. Some good news for Andreas is that he lowered his AF score below 5. From the 18 people who have had an AF sub-5 in the history of MKDD, 2 were cheaters and only 3 of the rest had not been a champion. So, obviously, the probability that Andreas will be a champ eventually is 81% =) #6 Marijn Jongbloed built a small lead on #7 Jean-Christophe Lacastaignerate. The Dutchie still has much room to cover to reach #5 Vincent van der Fluit and take the Dutch silver medal. Incidentally, Marijn's most recent records were twin G+7s on Vince's most-favouritestest course, Mush City. Marijn didn't beat Vince in either of those times, but I suppose you should start with some of the hardest ones and then work downhill =) The recent Dutch contributions from Marijn and Aron have put Netherlands at the top of the Country AF charts in 1, 2 and 3 player divisions. And Vince shouldn't feel bad, because he's contributing to the big lead over the French Army in the triple play. #31 Andrew Math passed four players (#32 Rodolphe, #33 Trystan, #34 Michael D and #35 Stefan v. D) with a respectable 3 pt AF cut. He's now 3 pts behind #30 and USA rival Gregor Fran. #53 Alex Hantson is on his way to the top-50, no doubt, following a very strong 6 pt AF cut week. The Swiss-American passed 12 reasonably famous MKDD names, including #54 Alejandro Laflamme, #56 Francois 'Paco' Chu, #58 me, and nationality-chameleon #57 Yohan Foog. #55 Thomas Lander passed those same three last names, and looks certain to pass Alejandro very soon. Thomas and Alex are now both Titan c! #62 Ivo van der Stap is still trying to run from #64 Joey Michorius, but the young Dutch player bounced back and scored 3x the size of Ivo's AF cut. Joey is 0.2 pts behind his countryman now. And speaking is small country rivalries, France's #66 Florian Chollet passed #67 Paul Regeffe this week, as well as four others. Florian's work is hardly over, seeing as he has 9 more French players to catch on the way to the top-50. #72 Matt Tanzer won't be feeling left out from national rivalries. He has USA players #69 Rob Chastain and #70 Jon Prentice in his radar. #77 Jerrol Hoppenbrouwers passed a few players. Namely, Ben Zeller and Dan Sloggett. But he gets his newsworthy mention for becoming the newest Titan player (Titan D), and for getting 32/32 Hero or better. #105 Kevin Sirman looks to be a powerhouse player, scoring a 20 pt cut. He passed 20 players, which was 1/6th of his ranking. Kevin narrowly missed out on the top-100 this week, but it would be foolish to bet against him making it by next week. He became Hero C as well, but who knows how long that's going to last... #161 Alessandra Martinelli is back with 26 PRs and a big 24 pt AF cut. Despite being a few places behind #158 Andrew Manning on the ladder, Alessandra's won the lead in her rivalry. Should be Exp A very soon. Speaking of Italians, #359 Nicola Gatti, Italy's 6th ranked player, may soon pass #350 Iacopo Sorce. Among his victims this week were Rachel Fanta, Kevin Booth and Nathan Stinson. #357 Jeff Lloyd is visiting Nicola's neighbourhood, scoring a 37 pt cut from 22 PRs (we expected him to get 35 pts...), including an Exp C in BC lap. Both Nicola and Jeff reached Adv B overall. #396 Kiyan Nourain made that top-400 spot that we expected him to, but he 'only' did it with a 34 pt AF cut. We expected over a hundred! The US player raced 17 PRs on his way to becoming Adv C, and has almost caught up to countryman #392 Colin Stephens. Colin made a small cut to keep a three-player lead on Kiyan. Both of these players should listen for the doppler blur of #402 Peter Nonkes, whose 128 pt AF cut was... well, that number says enough. He's a Dutchie, so it's no surprise to PR Smash all 32 of your times in a week. Peter also became Adv C. The interesting thing is that there were two triple-digiters this week, for #442 Otto Knigge produced a 116 pt AF cut. With a name like 'Otto', he might pass off as a Dutchie. But he's actually playing for the USA! (Maybe his great grandfather was a Dutchie and he inherited some good genes?) Otto joined last week and has already moved up over 100 places... but this week was a long week, so it may be ambitious to expect anything as huge next week. In any case, Otto became the newest Advanced player (Adv D). On a related note, #491 Joe Anderson (Int A) also jumped over the top-500 fence. New Records Olivier Peruch's excellent record (60Hz!) on Daisy Cruiser has fallen. Olivier's 31"380, from Sept last year, and was tied by Hendrik in December. Aron's brand new record of 31"376 is 0.004 quicker. Not much in it. All three players have a G+3 time. Aron also beat Hendrik's 32"32 on Yoshi Circuit with a 32"289, also claiming the G+3 barrier in the process. Hendrik's record was from two months ago. Aron felt his lap was very fluid, and his 0.03 lead over YC dynamo Hendrik suggests that Aron's lap, after all, a pretty good race. Not to be outdone so easily, Hendrik scored an excellent WR of his own -- on the very first course, even. A 24"296 for the German is the first G+5 score, and beats his old record by 0.04. Richard is 0.04 behind Hendrik's new score, and Aron double that. New Players Welcome to... Lucas Willand, USA (201st, Exp B) Marco D'Angelo, Italy (378st, Adv C) |