"MP3" contest

[djconnel]

I organize a fun pick'em contest every year, where participants pick the winners of races during the professional cycling calendar. The game usually gets around 25 participants at the beginning, which drops to a core of maybe a dozen as the season progresses. The scehdule is on the long-side (like pro cycling!), but points are only taken from one's best results for half of them, so skipping a few doesn't hurt the overall score other than for lost opportunity. Races count for either 20, 30, 40, or 50 places, with the bigger numbers corresponding to higher-scoring events. The first event this year is earlier than ever before: the Tour Down Under, which begins Sat/San. I enjoy running this game, as well as participating in it myself, and I hope we get more entries this year.

The schedule:

TDU, Tour Down Under, 20, 22Jan2008
TOC, Tour of California, 20, 17Feb2008
MSR, Milan-San Remo, 40, 22Mar2008
RVV, Tour of Flanders, 40, 06Apr2008
GW, Gent-Wevelgem, 20, 11Apr2008

PR, Paris-Roubaix, 40, 13Apr2008
AG, Amstel Gold, 30, 20Apr2008
TGA, Tour de Georgia, 20, 21Apr2008
FW, Fleche-Wallone, 20, 23Apr2008
LBL, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, 40, 29Apr2008

GDI, Tour of Italy, 40, 12May2008
DL, Dauphine Libere, 30, 08Jun2008
TDS, Tour de Suisse, 30, 14Jun2008
TDF, Tour de France, 50, 05Jul2008
SS, Clasica San Sebastian, 30, 02Aug2008

IRE, Tour of Ireland, 20, 02Aug2008
USTT, U.S. Time Trial Championships, 10, 29Aug2008
VAE, Tour of Spain, 40, 30Aug2008
USRR, U.S. Road Race Championships, 20, 30Aug2008
TGB, Tour of Britain, 20, 07Sep2008

TTW, World Time Trial Championships (W), 20, 24Sep2008
TTM, World Time Trial Championships (M), 30, 25Sep2008
RRW, World Road Championships (W), 30, 27Sep2008
RRM, World Road Championships (M), 40, 28Sep2008
PT, Paris-Tours, 30, 12Oct2008

LOM, Tour of Lombardi, 40, 18Oct2008

To enter, send an email with your TOP 3 for a given race (TDU is the first) with a body as follows:

TDU 1 first pick
TDU 2 second pick
TDU 3 third pick

to mp3 at djconnel d o t com

I don't necessarily read these emails (they're scanned by my Perl script), so I might miss comments.

Rider spellings are best taken directly from cyclingnews.com start lists. Cut & paste works best. Misspelled names may not count. I don't want team names or nations: just rider names.

Scoring is based on how well each rider does, weighted by where you placed him, with a 2x bonus if you pick the top 3 exactly. Different races have different weightings. TDU scores 20 deep, which is a low-ranked race. Number of counting scores per rider will be half the number of races held so far, so there's no need to enter every race (although it never hurts to enter).

Dan