The 2022 SeegerOlympics have concluded, winding up on the final day of competition on Friday, December 30. It was a down-to-the-wire photo finish (albeit with a quite rosy filter for Davin!) with a final score of 2 - 2 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 1 - 0 - 0 with Davin Seeger winning on the first tiebreaker (which was decided at the start of March 2022, and so hung over the rest of the competition) by being the only competitor to select the correct winners of Amazing Race 33.
And so, here is how the rest of the Olympic Year went down:
1. Champions League Pick-'Em (Joel) - This was the first event to have it's parameters established, with the draft order established on January 3rd. Reese selected Real Madrid with the 6th pick to win it over all of the favorites (and others, including Tim's surprise Villareal selected at 13 who beat 1st overall pick, and betting favorite, Bayern Munich on their way to the semifinals!)
Reese 1 - 0 All Others
2. Bowling (Brooke) - Although the spirit of the competition was to have everyone select at some point throughout the year one game of bowling that they played as "the official event", in the end we all needed to head down to Cougar Lanes together on Wednesday, December 28th to play it out. Unsurprisingly, Tim won the event with 15 - 20 pins to spare or so, but more intriguingly, this wasn't Tim's highest bowling score of the year.
Reese & Tim 1 - 0 All Others
3. Smash-Up Tournament (Andy!) - A bold choice for Andy (I was surprised to see going back in the text chain that it was indeed his event and format) where the top two finishers in each 4-player semi-final move on to the final. He failed to move on in a tough semi-final against Davin, Claire, & Brooke, and Joel, after narrowly winning his opening round against Reese and Tim, won a tough final with randomly selected decks against the three experts in the event...
Reese, Tim & Joel 1 - 0 All Others
4. Statue Football (Davin) - The final event played, on 30 December 2022, found Davin and Joel tied 2-2 in wins (spoiler alert!!) with Davin holding the tiebreaker, so all he needed was anyone except Joel to win the event. After Joel & Davin hooked up for the first touchdown, a glitch in the rules (which Joel kind of invents on the fly when there are no clear precedents) caused Andy to be starting in or near the end zone after each score, so after a first dropped pass each possession, Andy quicky racked up the necessary 28 points for the victory.
Reese, Tim, Joel & Andy 1 - 0 All Others
5. Black-Jack w/ Papa as Dealer (Tim) - Tim, then Joel were the first two to compete in this event, which kept scores a secret to all but those who had played until Reese played the final round on December 27th. Tim & Joel both crapped out on their attempts at $0.00, and so did each and every subsequent Seeger to take part until Brooke had a series of wins and got to $1.75 and subsequently stopped betting (like a reasonable gambler). Jen then played her round, and topped Brooke's tally to take the point! (I think at around $2.25, but exact total has been lost...). When Reese stepped up (to sit down) in front of Papa, she initially won several rounds, and looked to be set to take the point (not knowing the score she needed to hit). After surpassing Jen's score, she fell back a bit, and on the last bet (as time ran out), she went all in... and lost.
All Others 1 - 0 Davin, Claire, Brooke
6. Random Video Game Tournament (Joel) - The first point (I think) scored last year was Davin's victory in this tournament, which had a lot more games played at the Omaha Seeger house, than I had expected (6 out of 7). The outlier was a massive upset in the first round with Tim defeating Joel on the Sega Master System in Hang On! Davin eventually won the whole tournament, defeating Reese who had won the first round against Brooke in some weird kitchen cooking game...
All Others 1 - [0 Claire, Brooke]
7. Wikipedia Tournament (Davin) - Evidently, Davin had learned about this game on some youTube channel and chose the event as a clicking through the fastest (rather than the fewest clicks) from one random Wikipedia page to another. Joel secretly is a Wikipedia nerd, and worked his way to the final against Reese who was also dominant in the earlier rounds, but Joel won making his way to a congressional election in the Philippines in the 1960s.
Joel 2 - 1 Most Others [0 Claire & Brooke]
8. Two-Player Strategy Board Game Tournament (Andy) - 8 strategy games were initially laid out on the pool table, and were randomly selected for each match. Davin won a shock (to Andy, anyway) first round win (over Andy - in case that wasn't clear) in Quits, and Reese defeated Joel to get to the finals against Davin, who won Outwit to win the final and the point.
Joel & Davin 2 - 1 Most Others [0 Claire & Brooke]
And so, with the tiebreaker won early in the year, Davin is the 2022 Champion - the first year-long competition between 8 Seegers, and Davin becomes (I don't know for sure, not being able to check the actual trophy) only the second (?) person to win back to back SeegerOlympics.
Congratulations, and better luck next year to everyone!
