ACC 86: Complete Results
========================

In this competition, entrants were asked to come up with an Olympic-
themed clue whose answer contained at least two Olympic country codes.

And the winners are...

Gold: Lee McGinty <lee@ehiltd.dircon.co.uk>
Silver: Matthew Merzbacher <matthew@mills.edu>
Bronze (tie): Jacob Bergmann <jbergman@bbn.com>
              Brian Spollen <bcs@harriseda.com>

Gold medalist Lee McGinty has graciously offered to moderate ACC 87.

The constraints on this contest were apparently enough to scare away
all but the ten bravest of competitors.  Of the ten entrants, five
used
three codes, four used two codes, and one (Benjamin Levine's SURtSEY
ISLAND)
managed to use four.  Lee McGinty found two more words with four
codes, but
did not submit clues for either: DISENFRANCHISING (SEN FRA CHI SIN)
and
SOMNAMBULANT (SOM NAM BUL ANT). This seems to be the upper limit; any
words
contain five?

There was a good distribution of country codes, with no country
appearing
more than twice.  Most used relatively common letter combinations,
with the
most unusual being LBA (Libya), SEY (Seychelles), and NCA (Nicaragua).


The complete list of clues is as follows (medal winners indicated by
G, S, and B):

Clues:
------
Groups, perchance, that can ban some athletes (6,7)
Longish leap excited English fans (11) [G]
In the long run, a heavy-weight welcomes second chance after foul (8)
[B]
Olympic boat has zero punch needed for yachting achievement (4,8)
They like China's lead-off swimmer; unfortunately, hope is nil (10)
Nearly disqualified in Los Angeles, football player is upset about
game (8)[B]
Biased comparison stops gymnastic event (6,8,4) [S]
Icelandic youth leads in uneven bars first, as US try as a team? (7,6)
Gymnastic dancer has great first part lead: needs this to work
        in Atlanta perhaps (5,4)
Proper muddle after Opening Ceremonies results in a fiasco (7)


Bonus clues:
------------
Dropping 15 meters into water is, for 1504, galvanizing environment
(8,6)
Oppressive heat, too much, overcame French of sound integrity (10)
Soccer lead adequate for a preview (6)


Solutions, explanations and my comments (preceded by "+") follow
below,
after 30 lines of blank space:






























-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Groups, perchance, that can ban some athletes    (6,7)

SOLUTION:            RANDOM SAMPLES

Explanation:  &lit
Groups perchance = random samples
Whole clue = definition
 COUNTRIES:  (3)  in SOLUTION:
                              DOM (Dominican Republic)
                              SAM  (Western Samoa)
                              PLE  (Palestine)
COUNTRIES (5) in CLUE:

Groups, PER CHAnce THAt CAN BAN   athletes.

PERU  CHAD  THAILAND  CANADA BANGLADESH

+ Only cluer who tried to stack country codes in the clue itself,
+ not just the answer.
+ Reviving the &lit discussion of late, this is not an &lit but
+ a double definition.  (In &lit the entire clue can be read as
+ either the cryptic def or the straight def.  Nothing cryptic in
+ this clue.)  As far as double defs go, this one's OK, but I'm not
+ crazy about using part of the clue for one def and the whole clue
+ for another.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Longish leap excited English fans (11)

Answer = ANGLOPHILES

Longish leap = anagram fodder
excited = anagram indicator
English fans = defn.

The typically vociferous English support get very enthusiastic after
only an average first round jump from Jonathan Edwards (favourite to
win the triple jump), or something like that...

Words included
ANG = Angola
PHI = Phillipines
LES = Lesotho

+ Straightforward with a compact, sensible surface.  "Excited" is an
+ obvious anag. indicator, which makes this one a bit easy (although
+ there's an (unintentional?) red herring of "English fans" also being
+ potential fodder for an 11-letter anagram).
+ No deductions from the judges... Gold medal to Lee McGinty.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
In the long run, a heavy-weight welcomes second chance after foul (8)

   "the long run" = def. marathon (MAR = Morocco; HON = Honduras)
   "a" = "a"
   "heavy-weight" = "ton"
   "welcomes" = inclusion indicator
   "second chance" = "h"
   "after" = positional indicator
   "foul" = "mar"

+ Nice surface (is this wrestling or boxing?).  The clueing is
excellent,
+ except for the extraneous "in".  Brian Spollen ties for bronze.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Olympic boat has zero punch needed for yachting achievement (4,8)

(so no gold medal for them!)

Olympic boat= SOLING
has= container
zero=O
punch=CROSS
yachting achievement= SOLO CROSSING

The countries participating: Solomon Islands (SOL)
                             Croatia (CRO)
                             Singapore (SIN)

Because I had to look this up, I will pass along the fact that SOLING
is in
fact the type of boat, and is not a verb, at least in this context. It
is
evidently the only three person event in Olympic sailing and so is not
derived from the same root as solo.  I couldn't nail this down but the
word
perhaps derives from the sole, that is, the bottom of the boat. Can
you
clear this up, Sailor John?

+ SOLING's a new one on me, but I don't know from yachting.  According
to
+ http://www.helsinki.fi/~avnurmin/shistory.html
+ the name derives rather cryptically from S.O. + LING: LING from the
boat's
+ creator, Jan Linge of Norway, and S.O. from Linge's neighbor Sverre
Olsen,
+ who gave Linge some early financial backing.
+ All very interesting, but a little too esoteric for my taste... I
like
+ the use of the boxing sense of punch=cross, contributing yet another
+ Olympic sport to the clue.  But I don't like the "needed for",
needed for
+ the surface only.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
They like China's lead-off swimmer; unfortunately, hope is nil (10)

      They like China = SINOPHILES

      lead-off swimmer = S
      unfortunately = anagram indicator
      hope is nil (anagrammed) = INOPHILES
      S + INOPHILES = SINOPHILES

   Country codes: SIN (Singapore), PHI (Philippines), LES (Lesotho)

+ The Philippines and Lesotho pair up again in the second -PHILES
clue.
+ The extraneous "'s" is a problem, but the rest of the clue reads
well.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Nearly disqualified in Los Angeles, football player is upset about
game (8)

   nearly disqualified     defn. of MARGINAL
   in                      connective
   Los Angeles football player    L A RAM
   is upset                reversal signal
   about                   container signal
   game                    GIN (card game)

   Perhaps 'football' in the surface refers to 'soccer'.

ARG Argentina   INA  Indonesia

+ I like the use of 'football' in both its American and international
+ meanings... (Somehow I don't think U.S. football will ever be an
+ Olympic event!)  Clean clueing, besides the useless "in".
+ Only two countries in this answer, but one is a top football
+ contender (Argentina), while the other is football-crazy but less
+ than marginal (Indonesia).  Jacob Bergman ties for bronze (with
+ another entry that had an extra "in" in it!).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Biased comparison stops gymnastic event (6, 8, 4)

A double defintion, sort-of
  Biased          = uneven
  comparison      = parallel (as in, 'to draw a parallel')
  stops           = bars (as in, 'bars entry')
  gymnastic event = defn.

The answer includes the codes for Venezuela (VEN), Paraguay (PAR) and
Libya (LBA), all noted non-powers in gymnastics.

+ Excellent double def.  I like how "parallel" changes from adj. to
+ noun and "bars" changes from noun to verb.  The surface seems
plausible;
+ I picture a fight among the judges on the sidelines. And nice use of
an
+ unusual code, LBA.  Only drawback is that this is 18 letters long,
+ beyond conventional crossword length.  Silver medal to Matthew
Merzbacher.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Icelandic youth leads in uneven bars first, as US try as a team? (7,6)

and the answer's SURTSEY ISLAND.

"Icelandic youth" = definition, sort of.  Formed in the early sixties
   by an offshore volcano, it's a relative youth compared to the rest
   of the country, which has been there for quite some time.

"leads in uneven" = "uneven" as an anagram indicator for "leads in"

"bars first as US try" = a bit of a charade.  "barring" the first
letter
   from "as US try" yields the letters "sustry."

"as a team" = meaning "all working together."  "leads in s us try" can
   be rearranged to form "Surtsey Island."

in thirteen letters, there are four country codes...
    SURtSEY ISLAND
    Suriname
        Seychelles
            Iceland
               Andorra

+ Only clue with a four-country answer... also the only clue to have
+ one of its participating countries included in the surface reading.
+ "Icelandic youth" is a bit of a stretch.  (It reminds me a bit
+ of the Indonesian name for the volcanic island left after Krakatoa
+ erupted: Anak Krakatau, or Child of Krakatoa.)  The cryptic part of
+ the clue is awfully involved.  I still don't quite see how we're
+ supposed to know that SUSTRY is to be anagrammed along with LEADSIN.
+ Good surface, tho.  Interesting British sports usage ("US try").
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Gymnastic dancer has great first part lead: needs this to work
in Atlanta perhaps (5,4)

Gymnastic         - anagram indicator (sorry <g>)
dancer            => EN CARD
has .. lead       - put .. before EN CARD
great first part  - GREat
                  - GRE ENCARD
needs .. perhaps  - definition by reference to the need for a work
                    permit for foreigners to work in US (indicated
                    by "Atlanta perhaps"). GREEN CARD is the
                    name by which a US work permit is known at least
                    this side of the Atlantic.

Country codes: GREece, NiCurAgua

+ That's what it's known as on both sides of the Atlantic (as
+ popularized by Gerard Depardieu?).
+ I can go along with the definition (sort of), but this is a pretty
+ wordy clue for a nine-letter answer.  "Great first part" = GRE is a
+ little shaky, I think.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Proper muddle after Opening Ceremonies results in a fiasco (7)
        Proper muddle - ROPPER
        after Opening Ceremonies - ROPPER after C > CROPPER
        results in - connector
        a fiasco - definition of CROPPER
Country codes used - CRO (Croatia) and PER (Peru)

+ Great surface.  But "proper" hardly gets muddled to arrive at
ROPPER.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------



Bonus Clues
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Dropping 15 meters into water is, for 1504, galvanizing environment
(8,6)

   "dropping 15 meters into water" = def. "platform diving"
      (LAT = Latvia; VIN = St. Vincent and the Grenadines)
   "for" = "for"
   "1504" = MDIV (Roman num.)
   "galvanizing" = "plating"
   "environment" = inclusion indicator
   (thus, "formdiv" inside "plating")
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Oppressive heat, too much, overcame French of sound integrity (10)

Oppressive       - definition BURDENSOME
heat too much    - BURN
overcame         - inclusion indicator
French of        - DE => BUR(DE)N
sound integrity  - SOME | SUM (homophone)

Country codes: BURkino faso, DENmark, SOMalia

I had to attempt 3 codes but could not get a suitable Olympian
surface.
The closest I could get was about Atlanta's weather.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Soccer lead adequate for a preview (6)
        Soccer lead - S
        adequate - AMPLE
        for - connector
        a preview - definition of SAMPLE
Country codes used - SAM (Western Samoa) and PLE (Palestine)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
