Day FOUR

Another full day of Olympic excitement! The biggest news of all is, of course, that Tom Daley knitted himself a gold medal cosy.

Click here for his knitting and crochet instagram. I have looked at every post so I am qualified to recommend it.

In case there is anyone here not interested in the yarncraft hobbies of the Olympians, I will pivot and mention some of the other highlights from today. Lots of great news out of Tokyo. US Women’s 3×3 Basketball crushed gold medal match today, and the Women’s 200m relay final was just insane (though also technically tomorrow despite having appeared live in primetime). And tomorrow marks officially one week left until Race Walking begins.

Elsewhere on the Leaderboard I remain dominant due to a deadly combination of having invented the game and picking almost exclusively first week Olympians. Geeg Karen of GiGi4OhOh continues to secure the Silver medal spot, and General Guion of Papa New Guion stays at Bronze for another glorious Olympic day.

We saw Simone pull out of the Individual All-Around today and we also saw about 600,000 think pieces and hot facebook takes about it. And we all learned the terms, “lost in the air” and “the twisties” which I plan to incorporate into my general vocabulary immediately. But the competition is wide open now, so be sure to tune into the Today Show tomorrow so they can spoil it for you, and then complain when no one watches it in primetime.

Day THREE and Day FOUR

Well, I blew it. Last night I bragged on the women’s teams and went to bed on a smug feminist high and boy, was it a bad day for (US) Women in the Olympics. A pair of disappointing silver medals, and even the 3×3 team lost.

Click the link on the Leaderboard page to see the full damage to your team. Fortunately, I am still on top but the handwriting is on the wall.

There are a number of websites you can choose to visit for coverage of every possible angle of the Simone Biles withdrawal and I’m sure many of them are already reporting on the effect on Fantasy Olympics. However, I want to give you the definitive answer and that answer is: generally no effect. It seems impossible since all but 4 people selected Simone as their captain, but due to the longstanding Fantasy Olympics rule that a team is a team not the individuals, Simone herself would not have earned points for a team gold medal (and nor will she for the silver) but she will earn points for the individual competitions, so I think I speak for all of us when I say I hope she finds herself in the air by then.

Day TWO

Head to the Leaderboard link above to check out the standings for Day Two. The only thing saving this from being pretty suspicious is that my husband is in last place.

Day Two was a mixed bag for the Olympics, with it being a rough day for our flagship athlete, and the number one most captained person in the league, Simone Biles. All she did was qualify for 5/5 individual events and lead team to qualification but SERIOUSLY WHAT IS WRONG WITH HER. Imagine having a bad day at work and still being one of the eight best people in the world doing your job.

I am in the top 8 in the world for sleep procrastination though so I’m bringing you all the Olympic news you care to know. Did you know that the US Women’s basketball team is on a 6 gold medal winning streak? They are wide favorites this year again along with our women’s soccer, gymnastics, 3×3 basketball, softball, water polo, and volleyball teams. It is no wonder that Fantasy Olympians favored women’s teams and duos over men by selecting 13 women’s teams and only 5 men’s.

See you guys in a couple of hours for the softball gold medal game, right? No sleep til the Closing Ceremonies.

We live in the same town so it feels like I could be friends with Lee Kiefer if I tried or ever left my house.

Day ONE

Day One is over but do not despair. There are many more days to go, and we get Olympics again in February!

The appropriate reaction to remembering the Winter Olympics are only 6 months away.

Standings are updated through Tokyo’s Saturday. Naturally, I am atop the leaderboard after the first day owing to my excellent choosing and being the only one with editor access to the spreadsheet.

Click here to see the full standings.

It’s good to see so many fantasy countries have weathered the pandemic, though regrettably some have needed to take corporate sponsorship. But we’re all just doing what we can right now.

Anyhoo back to rewatching the road cycling that I already watched at 2 a.m.

Fantasy Becomes Reality

Fantasy Olympics is back and better than ever. Or at least back and similar to before. New site but same old game, complete with the insightful analysis you’ve come to love.

Click here to submit your country and Olympians.

The actual Tokyo Olympics website has a fantasy game this year but I’m here to tell you don’t do that one. Do this one instead. I mean you’re already on this website. What are you going to do? Go to a different website? You’re tired.

Submit your picks by Friday, July 23 at 7:30 pm, aka the start time for the American re-airing of the Opening Ceremonies. Won’t this mean some sports have already started due to Japan’s insistence on running the Games in their own time zone? Yes. Should you use that to your advantage? If you are shrewd.

No roster changes will be allowed after 7:30 pm on Friday. What does that mean for you, the overachiever who submits your picks earlier in the week? You may change them by text or e-mail in case athletes’ competition plans change (this is a polite way of saying in case your athletes get COVID).

You may also submit a flag and history of your country for the Parade of Nations page on this site.

New this year: auto-pick. The Fantasy Olympic Committee President will randomly select your team from the twenty most chosen Olympians.

Also new this year: The Fantasy Olympic Committee President has a two year old who doesn’t ever sleep so she’ll appreciate some grace with the update timings.

And the winner is…

Wow.  WOW.  It literally came down to one point.  It has never been this close before.  Or at least probably not.  I don\’t know.  I didn\’t actually check.

First, a word about our bronze medalist, the most decorated Fantasy Olympian of all time, The Former Vice Mayor of The Land of Tony\’s Flags, Kenny Kyle Fletcher.  Not quite able to reach his past success, he still hit the medal stand. He\’s like the Lindsey Vonn of this league except he has much better hair.

What Queen Ryan of Boylandia imagines the Summer Olympics will be like apparently.

The Winter Olympics were once again a not very hard fought battle made up mostly of Norway winning everything.  Maybe Trump should have rolled out that Norway-only immigration plan a few months earlier.  The US ended up finishing 4th in the medal table, which is I guess not you know, last, so meh whatever.  It\’s just being there that matters blah blah blah.

Also finishing not last were such storied Fantasy Olympians as Shah JoAnna of Jo-istan and Premier Daniel of Fepublic of Run, with his best ever finish at 17th.  And newcomers Chairman Randy of Randyland and President Bev of Team Kickass finished squarely in the top 40! And I finished 21st, which of course was exactly what I meant to do.

And now, the moment you\’ve all been waiting for.

The silver medal goes to Prime Minister Mark F of Bobbleheads.  It was a very strong showing, and it turned out to be a real squeaker but in the end he could not catch Her Excellency Amber of Rambastan, your 2018 Fantasy Winter Olympics gold medalist!

Congratulations everyone to a great season, and start doing your research now for Tokyo 2020.

Super Statistics

The last hockey medal match is today, and I think we need to ask ourselves: should OAR really be allowed to compete?  First, they are widely suspected of doping.  And second of all, is it really safe to allow a jam band from the 90\’s to compete with fully suited up German hockey athletes?  It honestly seems pretty dangerous to me, but whatever.

Super Coach Whitney of Irv Blitzer could probably handily take on OAR in an athletic competition, but sadly, it does not seem she will be able to take the top of the podium in Fantasy Olympics.  It\’s pretty unfortunate because no one puts the FAN in Fantasy Olympics quite like Super Coach Whitney, whose enthusiasm Super Coached me during the early data entry phase of setting up the league.

Seriously, it\’s a LOT of data entry.

Google has made it a bit easier though because without me even having to struggle with any math, I can tell you some interesting statistics.

For example, 40% of the league selected Norway as the overall medal winner, while an optimistic 38% selected the United States.  24% of the league selected Austria to win Alpine Skiing, while 23% selected Norway.  The countries actually ended in a three way tie for the most Alpine Skiing medals with Switzerland, which garnered the faith of exactly 0% of Fantasy Olympians.

Shaun White was once again the most popular captain, just narrowly edging out Johannes Bo and Michaela Shiffrin.

And exactly one person, The Gambler Kenny Rogers of Kenny Rogers\’ Roasterstan correctly predicted the most exciting moment of the Olympics- US Men\’s Curling Gold.

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LAST DAY

Standings

Much like his Olympic doppelgänger last week, Foreman Ted of The Democratic People\’s Republic of Vandalia is down to just one shot to live up to his great Fantasy Olympic expectations.

With only 6 points separating gold and bronze, it\’s a pretty exciting final day of the Olympics.  And don\’t count out Kingpin Matthew of The Altered State of Drugachussetts just 5 points off the medal stand.

Farther (further? where my grammar friends at?) down the table is Queen Robin of Randomland, who  breaks the top half of the table for the first time despite being a Shib Sibs apologist.

Let the countdown to the finale begin!

Big Day!

Spoiler Alert: Yes, she does.

Another Russian got caught doping, and Figure Skating, Freestyle Skiing, and Biathlon all gave out their final medals.  Her Excellency Amber of Rambastan still tops the leaderboard of course.

Not suspected of Fantasy Doping is The Other Anthony Scott of The Country of Bob who rounds out the leaderboard today with a… very… interesting 50 points.

Also very interesting is the medal count adding to the points totals this week.  Many Fantasy Olympians seem to make up for what they lack in selecting athletes by correctly predicting countries will be good at things they are traditionally good at.  But I\’ll be honest.  Medal Count was rough today.  No one got all three right though several people did get two. High Ruler of Yugoslavia and Other Imaginary Realms Esther of Arendale and Sultan Stephanie of Goldstania were both pushed into the top half of the table on the strength of their medal count selections.  Like many of you, they have already earned more points for their medals than their captains with half the sports left to finish.  However, it\’s going to be hard to catch Queen Mary of McCoyland who leads the way with 25 out of a possible 40 points so far.  I\’d suspect Queen Mary of Fantasy Doping but I\’ve never once seen her wear a shirt that says, \”I Don\’t Do Fantasy Doping\” so I know for sure she\’s clean.

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Bobbleheads?

This blog is all in on Adam Rippon.

While all eyes have been on Former Vice Mayor Kenny Kyle of The Land of Tony\’s Flags as the Fletcher to topple the leaderboard reign of Her Excellency Amber of Rambastan it turns out that it\’s Prime Minister Mark of Bobbleheads that is the one true hope!  The Obi Wan of Fantasy Olympics.  Catching up to H.E. Amber has never seemed so possible though also probably still pretty unlikely.

Standings

Elsewhere, we\’re seeing a promising late run to 11th by Chef d\’Equipe Kerry of Cabernet Sauvignonia.  I don\’t know what a Chef d\’Equipe is exactly, but I know my spell check hates it.  Chancellor Megan of Pollywoglandia is also creeping up the medal table.

There are a lot of points left on the table, Fantasy Olympians, so it truly is anyone\’s ballgame! Though, it\’s a… um… much taller order for some.  There, that was a nice way to say it, right?

There are a lot of great competitors near the bottom of the leaderboard.  Though at this point it does seem like Agent Orange MellForTheGold of Shitholecountry and Shogun RebForTheWin of Africa are probably not walking away with the Gold or the Win.  But kudos to Queen Liz of Lindsay von Bismarck for probably achieving her goal of not last!

I know, I know, this seems cliche, but it\’s really just being at the Fantasy Olympics and having that experience that matters more than any medal.  You just can\’t put a price tag on being a Fantasy Olympian.