A solvable arrangement problem rather than a gamble. Ten countries, ten sports, and one connection each — your score is the sum of their real world rankings, so lower is better and a country connected to a sport it isn't ranked in costs 200. Before you start you're told the best possible score those ten countries can reach, but never how to reach it.
Every category takes the better of a country's men's or women's result — national teams in the team sports, best individual athlete in tennis (singles or doubles), badminton and figure skating, and the strongest across all five formats in cricket and all six disciplines in ice/field hockey. Each connection shows which one supplied the value.
Individual rankings stay hidden while you work, so you're weighing what you know about which nations are strong where rather than reading answers off the board. Easy lays all ten countries out at once and lets you rearrange as long as you like — click a connected sport to send its country back — until you submit. Hard deals the same calibre of hand one country at a time, and every connection is final the moment you make it.
You're ranked on how many points you finish above that target:
PerfectExactly the Target
ImpressiveUnder 60
GreatUnder 135
GoodUnder 215
PassingUnder 290
Nice Try290 or More
The goal is the gap. Matching the best possible score means you found an optimal arrangement — there is no better one. Finishing close to it is a strong result; the tiers still apply, but the honest measure is how near you land.
Stuck? The Solve button reveals the full optimal arrangement. It ends the puzzle as a puzzle, so it's there for when you'd rather see the answer than keep grinding.
Six categories span more than one version of the sport, taking whichever is strongest: Ice/Field Hockey covers ice hockey, outdoor field hockey and indoor field hockey; Indoor/Beach Volleyball draws on both; Tennis covers singles and doubles; Cricket covers men's Test, ODI and T20I and women's ODI and T20I; Baseball/Softball covers both sports; and Figure Skating covers singles, pairs and ice dance. Every other category is a single discipline.
You'll be dealt 10 countries at random from 203 countries and assign each to one of ten sports. Once a sport is taken, it's locked. Your score is the sum of each country's real world ranking in its assigned sport — lower is better.
Assign a country to a sport it isn't ranked in and it scores the unranked penalty: 200. Every ranking is revealed the moment you make the pick, and no choice can be undone — the tension is committing before you know what's still to come.
Every category takes the better of a country's men's or women's result — national teams in the team sports, best individual athlete in tennis (singles or doubles), badminton and figure skating, and the strongest across all five formats in cricket and all six disciplines in ice/field hockey. Each pick shows which one supplied the value.
There's no target to clear. Where you finish earns a rank:
PerfectUnder 300
ImpressiveUnder 450
GreatUnder 600
GoodUnder 750
PassingUnder 900
Nice Try900 or Higher
Perfect needs a strong draw and near-flawless play — roughly one game in twenty. The results screen shows the best your draw could have done, so you'll know whether the deck or the decisions cost you.
Kiribati, Nauru and Tuvalu were removed from the pool: none holds a ranking in any of the ten sports, so drawing one was an automatic 200-point penalty with no decision to make. That leaves 203 of the 206 IOC-recognized countries.
Six categories span more than one version of the sport, taking whichever is strongest: Ice/Field Hockey covers ice hockey, outdoor field hockey and indoor field hockey; Indoor/Beach Volleyball draws on both; Tennis covers singles and doubles; Cricket covers men's Test, ODI and T20I and women's ODI and T20I; Baseball/Softball covers both sports; and Figure Skating covers singles, pairs and ice dance. Every other category is a single discipline.