Sports from the past week.

Past sports article for the week of 6/19/06

World Solitaire Championship In Dispute
By, Grey Sports

Munich, the sight of many sporting upsets from the Olympic thing heavy with the unpleasantness, the Berlin Wall upset when half the competitors escaped to the “wrong” side during a practice run resulting in the second largest American defection and the third least successful Russian defection, and now an event that may become the most famous event, an upset in the World Solitaire Championship.
Past events forced Munich to work hard to regain the trust and confidence of the sporting community. Improved stadiums, better than average facilities, larger bribes than anywhere else in Europe and greater allotments of chocolate have gone a long way to improving the image of Munich as a sporting town.
Hosting the World Solitaire Championship was seen as the first step to revitalising Munich’s sport reputation. Though a low-grade event it is also thought of as low risk, with just enough interest from various sporting concerns to begin generation of a new, improved Munich.
Now everything has gone wrong, Solitaire, the sport with only winners and losers, has turned up its first draw.
Early contestants such as Jervis Thourough, Amanda Leek and Ingrid Wong were shockingly taken out of the competition early, something that should have made for a much more exciting event.
The surprise came when Stephen Krwankowitc tied even with Stephen Krwankowitc!
That Stephen Krwankowitc became the last competitor is not unusual, such an event has occurred many times over during the years, so much so that matches such as the Lindenberg ’74 match, Timmson ‘86 competition and what has become known as the Rostov Showdown of ’99 have become firm favourites of Solitaire enthusiasts.
The tie is what has shocked so many, with everyone from Solitaire coaches, players, and of course armchair Solitaire strategists up in arms and spouting off every half plausible theory available.
Naturally it has been said that this is a massive case of match fixing, a tie was only included by odds makers to cover all possibilities, the long odds means that if it is declared the official result the dozens of gamblers betting on the least likely outcome will become millionaires to rival Bill Gate’s unborn great grandson.
Krwankowitc’s history of disciplinary actions within Solitaire have come back to haunt him, though these were all related to intimidation and physical threats to other players they were dismissed at the time as an enthusiastic form of psychological warfare, an accepted part of Solitaire. Now some wonder if that hid deeper ties to bookies or match fixers.
Simply passing the title off to the first runner up is no solution either, as that was also Stephen Krwankowitc.
Second runner up Hammond Grapes is no better as he clearly lost control of the Hearts suit in the final stages of the match while third runner up Gloria Victoria has legal worries of her own unless cleared of doping the cards.
Until this issue is resolved what we have here is the most thrilling episode in Solitaire history since ex-president Jimmy Carter was found with paperclips on his toenails.