The Knarfmo Report: Competition Days 1-4

knarfmo is the ISC delegate from Ainkien, and an unabashed supporter of all things under the Green-and-Gold Jack. He will be following the Ainkienian team around Leah, providing us with insight and observations from the XI Simlympiad, and from our Paranorian hosts.

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7 October 2009

I'm going to blog from time to time about the Simlympic Games in beautiful Leah, Paranor Island. We're now in the fourth day of competition and my country, Ainkien, is off to a great start. This is mostly because many of my favourite events are during the first half of the games and the AOC have invested a lot in our athletes in the earlier events. These are mainly in what I'll call the "knightly events", or those sports that seem to be based on skills necessary to run a medieval army, including shooting a bow and arrow, fighting with swords and riding horses.

Looking at the "knightly events," I'm not surprised to see that the Simlympic countries that represent old European powers are doing well, like Petrova, New Burgundy and the Shalman Commonwealth. But there are also some "New World" powers that are doing well like Lower Columbia and Dutch Columbia.

The sport of Archery brings notice that the skills of the "knightly sports" were also important in Asia, and Jiesan ended up with an Archery gold-silver double, with two Shalman Commonwealth archers left to shoot for the bronze. The Pacific rim countries of Perthshire, Victoria and the Cascasdian Federation did well in the Sabre Fencing, winning gold, silver and bronze respectively, while Ainkien edged out Petrova for the Épée Fencing gold and Dutch Columbia won the bronze.

In the Equestrian Three-Day Event, Ainkien was a surprise gold (at least I was surprised!), with Lower Columbia taking the silver and Tongolia the bronze. Interestingly, all three of these countries had multiple top-12 finalists.

There are still more "knightly events" to come, with the Equestrian Show Jumping and Dressage events and the Foil Fencing event. I keep expecting our friends from Æsgeard to show up with a medal in one of these events, as one would expect atheletes from an Arthurian nations to have some skill with swords, horses, and bows and arrows.

I'm neglecting a wealth of other news coming out of the other sports at the games. Hypertrophy, a country that I've not even mentioned yet, leads the medals table with 3 gold – in the Cycling Road Race, 400m Freestyle Swimming, and Middleweight Judo – and 2 bronze medals - a strong start indeed! West End and Coulla have also matched Ainkien with two gold medals so far.

I'll have some more ramblings in a few days... :)

-knarfmo

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Day 1 Results | Day 2 Results | Day 3 Results | Day 4 Results | Medal Tables