Zeitgeist Magazine, 27 August 301 AP

Zeitgeist Magazine's Utania (at the games!) This Week
August 27th, 301 AP

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Owing to the significant amount of Vexgames News, UTW is issuing a special bulletin to all UTW recipients, so that you can keep up to date all through the week!
- The UTW team
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TIME DELAYS

The Vexgames is suffering from the eight hour (minus a day) time difference with Utania, being in Lamb's cove, as the 11am start in Lamb's Cove will be at 3am in Utania, and continue until about midday. It means that newspapers are missing the early events when reporting in the morning papers, and evening news services are only reporting what people have already heard during the day from those listening in the morning on the radio, or watching on the TV before going to work. This had given rise to a new "Vexgames Syndrome": numerous companies contacted have reported a significant rise in late arrivals at work. President Okarvits told the press that it would be "a mean-spirited and unpatriotic" boss that would condemn non-essential staff from arriving late to work. The time difference, however, is not affecting patriotism, with numerous "Vexgames Parties" being very early in the morning, and many adults hitting the sack as early as 9pm to rise the following morning at 5am and get three hours of viewing in.

The Utanian Vexgames team has surpassed the amazing success of the Rovenians last week, with seven new medals this week!! Utania started the week with a single silver medal for the Cycling, and managed more in the same sport on Monday!

The Utanian men's team pursuit cycling team scored a Bronze medal on Monday, adding to last week's cycling medal by Gordan White. In the men's springboard diving, Lenard Temana won the country's first gold medal with an excellent score, and a superb personal performance.

This was then followed with yet another excellent performance from 22 year old Rachel Karven in the Sailing, Laser event, winning herself a gold medal. The estatic Karven hugged and celebrated with almost anyone within range. The victory is particularly sweet after the threats earlier last month that Sailing would be dropped from the government-sponsored list of sports.

Further excellent efforts include Edward Clyde's 1-on-1 basketball performance: fifth in the games; and the men's double sculls team, Jeff Sands and Goran Stirling, who came fourth. Utania had four medals after Monday -- two gold, and one each of Silver and Bronze -- putting her 11th in the world. But, it wasn't the end of the winning streak!

In the 100m freestyle, Billy Spije scored a Bronze for his performance on Tuesday, while Amara Schmidt followed that a mere hour later with a silver medal in the Women's Butterfly 200m final! Schmidt was carried by her shoulders from the arena by ecstatic teammates and training staff, after the 19 year old suffered injury earlier this year that endangered her chances.

The Utanian Women's Archery team scored a disappointing fourth place on Wednesday, narrowly losing to the Altlandic archers. And yet, the performance, based on little more than pure skill raised the stakes for Utanian archery. Mark B'yara followed this with a fourth in the Men's Trap shooting. And, to round out the "day of Fourth's", tiny Deborah Amekipa scored fourth place in the world in the Women's 100m Freestyle, a fantastic performance for the 16 year old Luka-based, Savaj swimmer, who definitely proves her talent will see her in many more games to come. Wednesday was rounded out with a sixth place for Louise Rannatosu in the Women's 200m Breaststroke.

Thursday, and the women's Archery team's superb performance was highlighted by the failure of the Men's team to score in the Top 6 in the world. Archery, of course, being a skill that many Utani pride themselves upon -- despite it being an unrequired skill for at least 400 years.

The medal drought ended early in the next day with a Bronze medal to Ian Stirling for his Triple Jump performance. Utania's news programmes celebrated the 27 year old's performance, in which he narrowly beat Rovenian Anatoly Abramovich. Jennifer Dyson was also cheered on in her Women's 100m final, but regretably couldn't hold the pace over the field.

However, it was early the following morning (Saturday 3am) that Utania found the scintillating taste of gold once again: the Men's 4x100m relay team pulled off an incredible victory in the opening hours of the day! "GOLD" the TV screen flashed, Utania's swimmers had scored a gold medal! This is particularly amazing given that only Billy Spije has won a medal in the individual 100m event, thus proving the power of "A champion team will always beat a team of champions"!

Later that day, Utanian Jurgen Aparte would come fourth in the Hammer Throw, beating Rovenian Sergei Koptev who was tipped to lead the field. The Whitlamite rowing teams in the Women's Coxless pairs scored first and second place in the world, much to the amazement of all concerned. Utania was not to feature in the finals of any other event for that day. Stay tuned, for Utania is not down and out just yet!

For all the very latest, check out the official site:
http://www.angelfire.com/games/lambscove/vexgames/