MarbleLympics 2019: Event #3 – Balancing

Historically, balancing has been one of the less interesting events of the MarbleLympics. The whole point of the exercise is, well, not to fall off. The stakes aren’t particularly high; falling a few centimetres isn’t going to damage a marble. The audience doesn’t expect injuries of the kind that caused the (still controversial) Momary merger in last year’s MarbleLympics.

But they also don’t expect this:

That’s right: in this event, the world record was broken not once, not twice, but thrice! Early on in the event, the Crazy Cat’s Eyes broke the world record with a combined score of 351, and it looked like they would remain atop the podium. But in the latter half of the event, things really heated up. The Thunderbolts nabbed the world record from Crazy Cat’s Eyes with a 408, and then immediately afterward, the Hazers bested that with a whopping 438, obliterating the old 2016 world record of 347 by 91 points.

Balancing will probably never again be this exciting. Unfortunately, that excitement comes with consequences:

Let’s hope that the Committee moves to reassure fans of the event’s integrity as soon as possible.

Stray thoughts:

• The O’Rangers continue to do surprisingly poorly compared to their performance in past MarbleLympics, though they improved from their disqualification in the previous event by, well, not being disqualified this time around.
• The Green Ducks continue to do well, posting a respectable fourth-place finish.
• The Oceanics finished in a respectable eighth place. To the extent that the blue surface represents water, maybe they’re just ironically pretty good at avoiding it.
• The Thunderbolts are a dark horse candidate to watch. If they continue improving in the standings, the Savage Speeders’ reign atop the rankings won’t last.

Complete stats for the 2019 MarbleLympics can be found at the MarbleLympics Wiki. Programming note: Due to a prior commitment, the next installment of this coverage will be posted next week on Wednesday instead of Tuesday.