2015 World Championships Pick ‘Em: Wild Day 5 yields wide score range

There has been one update to today’s scores: In the women’s 200 fly, Franziska Hentke of Germany tied for fourth place, but did not originally receive any points.  We have updated to give contestants who picked Hentke 2 points for 4th place, and 1 point for picking her to finish 1st, 2nd, or 3rd.

Day five of the 2015 FINA World Championships Pick ‘Em Contest (presented by TYR) was one of the more interesting and volatile days we have seen in our history of running these contests.  Three of the four individual finals contested had two swimmers who fell under the “other” category finish in the top fours.  That yielded a huge variation in scores between the top 2-3% of contestants for the day from the rest of the field.

Today’s daily winner was RTB, who picked an “other” swimmer in the correct place in all three individual events to propel him/herself to a 40-point day.

Day five, by the numbers:

Total possible points: 71 (really 86, but could only choose one “other” swimmer per event)
Contestant average: 20.3 (ouch)
Standard deviation: 4.5 (66% of contestants were between 15.8 and 24.7 points)

• The men’s 100 free was the biggest surprise, with readers’ scores hampered by Vlad Morozov’s DQ and Nathan Adrian potentially battling a shoulder injury.  Zetao Ning was an unexpected victor in the event, with just 9 readers picking him for the win
• Just three readers (RTB, BDL Swim, and tuzzii200) correctly picked an “other” swimmer to finish 3rd or 4th in the men’s 100 free, women’s 200 fly, and men’s 200 IM
• Just three readers picked Natsumi Hoshi to win the women’s 200 fly
• The Americans were clear favorites in the women’s 4×200 free relay according to pretty much every swim pundit, including our readers; 411 of you correctly picked Team USA to come away with the win

With just three days left in the meet, the race for the overall Pick ‘Em champion is taking shape, with around 10 competitors in serious contention.  John26 currently has a nice cushion on the field with 153 total points, ahead of  swimdork (148 points) and BDL Swim (147 points).

Full results, sorted by day 5 scores, are below:

… as well as total scores through day 5: