The winners and the results from this year's contests.
September 13, 2024 by Keith Raynor in Fantasy with 0 comments
The Beat Charlie Challenge for the 2024 World Ultimate Championships is presented by Spin Ultimate. Please support the brands that make Ultiworld possible and shop at Spin Ultimate!
With the 2024 World Ultimate Championships in the book, the Beat Charlie Challenge is all wrapped up. We picked the winners, guessed the props, and tried to find the upsets and which favorites to target. Hopefully, following along was fun. It is the first time we have done this outside of the College and Club Championships.
But let’s see how Charlie did, talk about the popular picks, and announce the winners for this round of the BCC.
Charlie’s Picks
62 of 228 entries outscored big Charlie (and 18 more tied him, but we’re playing the Beat Charlie Challenge, here), who finished with 58 points. That puts Charlie at about the 73th percentile. Not his best, but still pretty solid. The average score was just above 55.
Charlie’s Most Recent Result: 83rd percentile (D-I Championships 2024)
Charlie’s All-Time High: 97th percentile (D-I Championships 2021)
Charlie’s All Time Low : 47th percentile (Club 2023)
This run’s top scorers: Mandy Li (69); Ian (67); ScootScoot33, Oscar Modiano, Morgan Garland (66)
Women’s Division
- Top 8: Colombia, Germany, United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, France, Great Britain
- Semifinals: United States, Colombia, Canada, Germany
- Final: United States, Colombia
- Champion: Colombia
- Scored: 16
- Avg. Entry: 17.4
The most talked-about division was also Charlie’s worst, missing on both a semifinalist (Germany was selected by 52% of entrants) and the winner. 64% of the field took the USA to win the division, a pretty solid split and place where Charlie took a hit.
If you’re wondering, only seven entries chose a team other than USA or Colombia to win the division. And shout out to Chinese Taipei, who finished in the top eight even though only two entries picked them to do so.
Open Division
- Quarterfinals: United States, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Belgium, Japan, Colombia, Germany
- Semifinals: United States, Canada, Great Britain, Belgium
- Final: United States, Great Britain
- Champion: United States
- Scored: 17
- Avg. Entry: 16
Excluding the USA (above 99%), there were five teams selected in 30% or more entries to reach semifinals in the open division, making it a pretty vital pick. Japan was the lowest among those (35%), so that’s the best case for Charlie, and he was on Belgium (615) with a good chunk of folks, lessening the damage there. Only 17 entries had Japan in the final.
Charlie swept the quarterfinals, though, correctly picking Colombia over more popular teams (France, Italy).
Mixed Division
- Quarterfinals: United States, France, Italy, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Japan, Singapore
- Semifinals: United States, France, Canada, Italy
- Final: United States, France
- Champion: United States
- Scored: 18
- Avg. Entry: 17
Impressive that Charlie outscored the field with an incorrect finalist (France) and semifinalist (Italy). France was the most popular non-USA finalist (43%) and Italy was the most popular semifinalist pick that didn’t make it (44%), although fading Australia there also probably hurt. But Charlie nearly nailed the quarterfinalists, smartly fading Colombia (47%) and missing on a Great Britain team that 70% of entries also picked.
Bonus Picks – Fantasy
- Women’s Div. Goals: Levke Walczak
- Women’s Div. Assists: Britt Dos Santos
- Open Div. Goals: Rob Andrews
- Open Div. Assists: Liam Habberfield
- Mixed Div. Goals: Kaeda Yoshida
- Mixed Div. Assists: Nasser Mbae Vogel
- Total: 2 points
Charlie’s lone hit for the fantasy portion was a good one: Liam Habberfield tied for leading the Open Division with 25 assists. His Levke Walczak pick missed the top five by a single goal (and the same was true for assists) while Dos Santos missed the top five by just two assists.
The average entry had under two points, which is impressive considering many people correctly picked Valeria Cárdenas to lead the women’s division in assists. Special shoutout to Tadhg Bogan Carey, the only entrant to score six fantasy points, hitting two division leaders (Valeria, Taiyo Arakawa for Open Division goals) and two more top five scorers (Yuko Kashino in Women’s Division goals and Valentin Fischer in Open Division assists).
If you want to see the full scoring tables, here they are for the women’s, open, and mixed divisions.
- USA loses one game
- Canada wins more medals than Great Britain + Germany
- France + Italy + Belgium win more medals than Australia + Japan
- Australia Open defeats New Zealand Open by 4 or more goals
- USA Open defeats Great Britain Open by 4 or more goals
- Colombia Women’s defeats Canada Women’s by 3 or more goals
- Italy Mixed defeats Australia Mixed by 1 or 2 goals
- Total: 5 points
Charlie helped himself by beating the average (3.3) here. He got three of the four against the spread picks (missing Italy vs. Australia Mixed), with both Colombia vs. Canada Women’s and Australia vs. New Zealand Open coming down as coin flips based on selection percentage. He also joined 46% of entrants in correctly picking the USA to lose one game.
The Winners
By random selection of entrants who outscored Charlie, Dan Young wins the US national team jersey, and Max Hamilton, and Achi Wong each win City of Ultimate jerseys, all from Spin Ultimate.
Feedback Welcome!
Did you play? Did you not play? Why or why not? What rules would be fun to play with? What tweaks can be made? Should the top scorer get a prize all to themselves, or maybe the top three get access to a special prize drawing?
We want the Beat Charlie Challenge to be fun and have different strategies be viable without being too complicated for lots of people to enter. You can contact me by emailing [email protected].
