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JRN Contest Results

With the conclusion of the 2009 World Championships marathons it's time to announce the two divisional runners-up and the grand prize winner in our marathon prediction contest.

In the men's marathon division, celebrity JRN reader A. Webb beat the next entrant by a margin of nearly 100 points to take the prize. Webb successfully predicted top man Atsushi Sato's 6th place finish and was off by only 42 seconds with a time prediction of 2:11:23. More impressively Webb called Irifune's 2:14:54 finishing time, the only entrant to exactly nail one of the finishing times, and was off by only 5 spots with an estimated 9th place finish.

In the women's marathon division, enigmatic Japanese women's marathoning superfan Dennis, a/k/a Kevin, showed that he/she is not just talking when he/she is talking Japanese women's marathoning. Dennis/Kevin outwitted his/her nearest rival thanks to crafty time calls for Fujinaga, Kano and Ozaki, which he/she guessed within as close as 25 seconds.

For their efforts, Webb and D/K will receive some quality Japanese distance running-related tchotchkes within a fortnight. And now on to our grand prize.

To win the grand prize of a 2009 Japanese national team singlet the winner had to have the best overall score for the combined predictions for all nine Japanese marathoners. Our winner had only one bullseye, picking Sato for 6th in the men's marathon, but guessed three finishing times from within 10 to 43 seconds of the true times and was consistently close on the others. And that winner, ladies and gentlemen, is none other than JRN regular Simon. Congratulations to Simon, Webb, and Dennis/Kevin, and thank you to everyone worldwide who entered.

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