Despite not being the best performing team in Eugene, there is still no change at the top of our Fantasy Diamond Race League with Team Top Sprinters solidifying its position and signalling to other teams: “catch me if you can.”
It has been a statement of intent from Top Sprinters who went into the Eugene DL with its place under threat as others breathed down, looking for an opportunity to capitalize.
Talk about trailing and blazing towards the top, Trailblazers powered (by this writer) emerged as the best team in our league from Eugene with 143 points.
Not many would have thought about men’s Shot Put winner, Ryan Crouser as their captain, maybe because the event didn’t look glamourous enough. However Trailblazers team have him to thank for the massive 60 points he returned which helped them finished tops.
That’s the kind of leap you make, being astute with who your captain is. Trailblazers showed that a good captain can really make up for the no-shows and 8th place finishers in your team. Asbel Kiprop accounted for only 1 point, while Sunnette Viljoen didn’t take part in Eugene which hampered Trailblazers, maybe they could have closed the gap at the top if these athletes had returned more points.
Oxford Osagie seemed to have registered two teams, albeit with the same name: Oxford Osagie’s team, occupying both 2nd and 3rd spots with 134 points. Since we know he is the same person, one team stands disqualified while we upgrade the next in rank to 3rd.
After winning the league last season and a wobbly start to 2017, Champ995 team owned by our Lagos Head coach, Deji Aliu finished 3rd in Eugene with 132 points, and they now seem to be steadily finding their way up. Watch out, as they have shown over the years that they can mount a consistent challenge to the end.
Bringing us back to Team Top Sprinters who despite finishing 6th in Eugene still accumulated enough points (121) moving to a total of 450 and establishing a 25-point gap over Trailblazers in 2nd with 425 points.
Although Caster Semenya whom Top Sprinters chose as its captain didn’t do a Meet Record (MR) accounting for 30 points, Christain Taylor with his MR in the men’s Triple Jump got 30 points, Mo Farah (15 points after winning men’s 5000m) helped augment the three 3rd place finishers in Top Sprinters’ team, who returned 7 points each.
Top Sprinters are now currently ranked 44th in the world, going down some places from the 25th they were on in the world. Still a big feat that they are in the top 100 worldwide.
This week’s winner is an MoC staff which makes him ineligible for the weekly prize rewards for the top 3 non MoC staff in our league. So who are those qualified to get this week’s rewards? At number one is Oxford Osagie’s team with 134 points, while Smith Osaremwinda’s team is 2nd with 128 points. Although Arco-Group sponsored Jerry Jakpa is signed on to our Track Club, he is however eligible for fantasy prize rewards as his Blitz team finished 3rd with 124 points.
AIRTIME WINNERS for #DiamondRaceContest DAY 3
There will be ₦3,000 Airtime available to the public each Diamond League Day, so who were the Top 3 finishers on Day 1 in the MoC League who are not MoC staff, and how will the Airtime be shared?
1st – Oxford Osagie’s team – 134 points
2nd – Smith Osaremwinda’s team – 128 points
3rd – Blitz team– 124 points
The prizes for the Top 3 are ₦1500, ₦1000 & ₦500 Airtime respectively, to a phone number of choice within Nigeria. If you are a winner and have not won our airtime before, kindly send an email with subject: “Airtime Redemption for #DiamondRaceContest” to [email protected]. In the mail, kindly state your name, team name and phone number.
Remember to start making your team transfers for Rome Diamond League to stand a chance of winning some of our prizes.
