Event 10: The Grand Finale

The Final Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “The Grand Finale” – was held at The Mighty Winchester Tavern on a Saturday night and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Leighton Agnew, Conrad Blight, AJ Sutton, Anthony Browne, Dr Todd Keenan, Stuart Brooke, Dave Parkinson, Simon Watson, Brydon Price, Thomas Rowe, Simon Hudkins, & Shane Munro.

What’s the manly competition that the whole world loves? What’s the sports entertainment extravaganza that is admired by millions but open to a select few? What’s the annual ten-week event that is steeped in tradition, fought with comradely gusto, and has literally drained the English language of adjectives and superlatives? Is it The Mancathlon? The Mancathlon? Yes? Yes it is, that’s right. The Mancathlon – emanating like a shockwave from the southern isles and spreading across the globe like the tendrils of a communist octopus from some cold war PSA, its cackling beak rendered in faded, choppy pastels. After three years of consistently elevating stakes, standards and production values, the expectations were high for the fourth year of the Mighty Contest. Despite the ever-encroaching demands of careers, procreation, the carnal carousel, failing bodies, age & entropy, apathy, the continued flourishing of quality television drama courtesy of the HBO revolution, beer guts, 1080p near-photorealistic video games, glue sniffing, online gambling and aerobics classes, the 2009 Corporate AGM saw a record 21 Mancathletes sign on to take a shot at the big time. Flush with novelty and enthusiasm these multitudinous Mancathletes old & new waited for the electrical arc of creativity that would ignite the 09 Season. And waited, and waited. Mired in the shimmering tedium of the film industry, El Presidente Rico Juarez was unable to provide that fruitful spark which would ignite the vast nebulous potential of the much-anticipated 4th season. Until…

PHOTOS     http://www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622771204279/

GLORY & HEARTACHE

Mancathlete	Song	Score	Placing	Points
Leighton Agnew	Sweet Child O Mine	334	6th
Conrad Blight	20th Century Boy	321	7th
AJ Sutton	Blister In The Sun	276	10th
Anthony Browne	Hot Stuff	371	3rd	3 Points
Dr Todd Keenan	You May Be Right	355	4th	2 Points
Stuart Brooke	Are You Old Enough?	343	5th	1 Point
Dave Parkinson	One Way or Another	226	12th
Simon Watson	Should I Stay Or Should I Go?	292	9th
Brydon Price	Why Does Love Do This?	242	11th
Thomas Rowe	Hurts So Good	297	8th
Simon Judkins	Pyscho Killer	374	2nd	4 Points
Shane Munro	Sweet Home Alabama	386	1st	5 Points

MANCATHLON 2009 POINTS TABLE

1st	Stuart Brooke	23.5
2nd	Thomas Rowe	23
3rd	Conrad Blight	23
4th	Leighton Agnew	20.25
5th	Dr Kirk Stevens	11.5
6th	Dave Parkinson	11.25
7th	Shane Munro	9
8th	Brydon Price	8
8th	Azza Dolbel	8
9th	Simon Hudkins	6
9th	Dr Todd Keenan	6
10th	Simon Watson	4
11th	AJ Sutton	3.25
12th	Anthony Browne	3

“You Are Cordially Invited”

…to be both Judge & Audience at the most heart-achingly auspicious social event of your entire life – The Mancathlon Grand Finale! For the first time in the history of this event our team of temerarious Mancathletes cast off the shackles of bright lyrics across a screen & robotic pre-programmed backing tracks and soar free and powerfully, borne on the mighty wings of Auckland’s Greatest Covers Band “4Play”.

Do not miss this once in a lifetime event, tell your Friends, and tell your Friends to tell their Friends, do whatever it takes to experience the pure pub-rock perfection of 15 Mancathletes going head to head on the microphone, utilizing every weapon in their extensive arsenal of onstage antics to win your hearts and votes. This Saturday night from 7pm onwards at The Winchester Tavern, 24 St Benedicts Street, Newton!

Event 9: The Krypton Dive

The Ninth Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “The Krypton Dive” – was held in Deep & Cold Water on a Saturday afternoon and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Simon Watson, AJ Sutton, Thomas Rowe, Dave Parkinson, Shane Munro, Dr Kirk Stevens, Brydon Price, Stuart Brooke, Leighton Agnew, & Conrad Blight.

For the first time in the history of this august institution the Mancathlon was going subaquatic, heading beneath the water for a titanic struggle that would test both lung and mental capacity to their very limits. A 3.5 metre deep diving pool was the field of dreams for this critical battle in the 2009 campaign. Clearly the man with the heaviest ballsack would sink to the bottom the swiftest and emerge the victor on the day, entering the Grand Finale with the all important points edge. For one man the eternal glory of Big Chiefdom beckons. Will it be the nigh unstoppable powerhouse Thomas “Bus” Rowe? Or will another Mancathlete overtake the Grey Ninja in the closing stages of this hard-fought season to snatch the crown. This is the crucial juncture for these brave souls, the inflection point, the moment in their lives when all the rotating lines of future potentiality align in a perfect crystalline configuration, a vast, grand structure of limitless power. Oui, oui, bien sûr.

Trusted Mancathlon confederate Rowan Graham had devised a 5 piece puzzle that formed a collegiate letter-M, each piece fashioned from clear perspex with twin yellow stripes to make them (somewhat) visible underwater. Unable to attend due to work commitments with the Boeing Corporation, Rowan enlisted leading Mechatronics engineer Thomas “Skynet” Hurst to fill in on referee duties. Thomas tested the water and found it sufficiently cold & deep, the pressure bearing down upon his skull, forcing his eardrums tight as he moved toward the bottom of the pool to scoop up two of the pieces. As the Mancathletes arrived and gathered about the pool, they gazed into the fathomless water, their arms folded, exhilaration & uncertainty rising up within them as they prepared to dive headfirst into Rico’s latest folly. Thomas smacked the gavel and ran them through the rules of engagement:

- You are in a sequestered anteroom, the Umpire throws the pieces into the pool in a random configuration. The clock starts as you exit the waiting room, you can use as much time as you choose to visually locate the pieces but once you enter the pool you don’t get this opportunity again. No goggles allowed.
- Your first entry to the pool is a dive from the edge. After that you must enter and exit the pool via the stairs at the far end, strictly no diving or looking into the pool from the sides allowed.
- If you can, you are able to retrieve more than one item at a time but each time you come up for breath you must exit the pool (via the stairs) with whatever number you have and take them to a table on the periphery of the pool. The more you can get on any dive the faster you will complete the challenge.
- Once you have collected all the items on the table, they will form a Krypton Factor-style puzzle. You will be able to refer periodically to the puzzle template that you are trying to replicate, but you are not able to lay the pieces on top of the template. The puzzle table will be hidden from the view of the other contestants by a wall. The Umpire will stop the clock when you successfully solve the puzzle.

Simple. In theory.

But, as first man off the starting blocks Reginald Watson would soon discover, a distant ocean of pain & frustration can separate theory from practice. Reg paced back and forth on the edge of the divepool, though it was unclear whether he was unable to see all the pieces or whether he just didn’t want to get cold. Finally he got his balls up and dived into the water. Seizing two pieces he burst to the surface breathing in ragged gasps and swam to the steps at the far end. Jogging to the table to deposit the pieces, he walked back to the pool with his hands on his hips like a pregnant woman in trackpants. He slipped into the water and swam back out to the deep end. Reg employed a unique technique to propel himself into the depths of the pool, flipping over he planted his feet under the overhang of the pool’s edge and pushed off, surging downwards. One by one he retrieved the geometrics from the water and laid them out on the table. He had successfully completed the physical test but now a new and more harrowing task awaited him. As the seconds tumbled relentlessly onwards on the Umpire’s stopwatch, Reg desperately rearranged the pieces on the table, flipping them, rotating them, shifting and shuffling them. Yet for each reordering the shape seemed to less and less resemble a large M, and more & more resemble a twisted nightmare from which there was no escape. Finally after 6 and half minutes a giant penny dropped in the tumbling gears of Reg’s mind and the elusive M appeared before him. Reg emerged from behind the wall pumping his fists in triumph, grinning from ear to ear – the first man to complete the Krypton Dive and having set the benchmark for others to follow.

LL Cool AJ slipped smoothly into the water, espousing Jacques Cousteau’s maxim “A lot of people attack the sea, I make love to it”. AJ had mapped the location of the pieces well, moving along the bottom of the pool like a manta ray and scooping up 3 pieces. Reentering the pool with a flamboyant Hasselhoff dive, the side of the pool erupted in controversy as AJ flouted the rules with trademark insouciance. A Mancathlon summit was rapidly convened & AJ was slapped with a ten-second penalty. AJ kept his cool though and moved through the intellectual component in steady time, clocking up a round 3 minute total. Next up was the big man, Thomas Rowe. Thom launched his towering frame into the water, tearing up from the bottom with 3 pieces clutched in his spade like hands. The 4th piece came easily. But as he returned to the water to claim the 5th piece Thom’s troubles began. He knew the quarter of the pool that the piece was in, but he’d be f*cked if he could find where it was. He swam about on the surface staring down into the water. He clutched the side of the pool, trying to elevate himself, looking for that distinctive splash of yellow shimmering in the fractured prism of the water. He dove down 3 times, combing the bottom of the pool for the invisible piece, emerging each time, fruitless and frustrated. At last the piece revealed itself, cloaked by a white strip of paint on the pool floor, Thom plowed through the water and to the table, configuring the pieces and stopping the clock at a heartbreaking 7 mins 14 seconds. His via dolorosa finally over he walked back to his plastic chair to watch the next competitor.

Mr Dave “Superlungs” Parkinson. Dave had spent his adult life putting his lungs through a strict regimen of Port Royal rolled tobacco and they had responded superbly. Their resilience and capacity were second to none, and as Dave scythed to bottom of the pool and proceeded to frog kick his way smoothly around, gathering all 5 pieces with ease it was clear that the bar had been raised roof-high by this amiable freak of nature. Clocking in a massive 1′ 48″ time, Dave sauntered back to the side of the pool, toweling off his hair and rolling a durrie to thank his lungs for the good work. And they loved him for it.

The next competitor, Shane “The Fijian” Munro, was hoping to draw on his ancestors’ proud seafaring, warrior tradition to power himself to the bottom of the pool and retrieve the puzzle fragments as though they were shellfish from the ocean floor. Munners took a slow and steady approach to the task at hand, grabbing one piece at a time, and moving through the puzzle for a respectable total of 6′ 06″. But with 5 Mancathletes still to dive would it be respectable enough to put him in the points? Kirk Steven’s performance suggested that maybe it wouldn’t, as the barrel-chested competitor muscled his way across the floor of the pool in a single breath to snap up a difficult spread of all 5 pieces and jog over to the table, breathing hard & steeling himself for the mental travails ahead. Dr Kirk maintained his composure, using his mysterious powers of chiropractic manipulation to identify the vertebral subluxations that afflicted the fractured puzzle & skillfully restore it’s innate intelligence in just over two short minutes.

Celebrity Barista Brydon Price was not in a good way. Having punctured his eardrum years earlier while cleaning his ears after too many coffees; he had to have the cotton bud removed by doctors from his brain and the x-rays have since achieved a sort of Peter Sinclair-esque notoriety on message boards around the muntra-web. To compound the issue he was suffering severe cramping in both legs caused by fluid loss following a surfeit of frenetic love-making the night before. But the Spirit of the Mancathlon compelled this legendary competitor to dive into the cold water, and to look deep into his own heroic soul for the courage required. Brydon’s initial dive put two pieces in his hand, while a third was just centimetres from his grasp before the burning in his lungs forced him to surface. Steadily retrieving the 3rd & 4th pieces, he struggled in the water as his calves locked up in pain, sometimes forcing him to dog paddle frenziedly to the surface as Davy Jones called to him from beneath that cold canopy. Brydon had unwisely failed to spot all 5 pieces before launching into the pool, and like Thom before him, that 5th piece cost him precious minutes. Finally battling through the mental & physical anguish, Price came out from behind the wall, head held high, unbeaten, a Mancathlete.

Pacing up & down the side of the pool like a caged animal, Stu Beef leapt into the water and surged from piece to piece, gathering them all in a single powerful breath, emerging from the other end looking grim and focused. Behind the wall only Stu’s forehead and scrunched brow were visible as he furiously manipulated the pieces. In just over 1 and a half minutes he’d done it, surely snatching up a sweet 5-Pointer with unassailable confidence and moving back into contention for Big Chiefdom in ’09. Leight-Dogg however was not feeling the confidence. He was not feeling entirely well about this event at all. The only competitor to receive a DNF, Agnew variously blamed…a birth defect of 3 lungs preventing him from submerging completely in water, a traumatic reaction to chlorine, and his insufficiently heavy balls not allowing him to sink. And so, Leighton’s puzzle pieces lay where they settled on the bottom of the pool and final competitor Conrico had at them. Looking good as he dove into the water and swept up 4 pieces, Blight came within reach of the 5th before his conditioning gave out and he kicked back up to the surface. The 5th should have been money in the bank, but like Thom before him the final piece had settled on a white strip and was almost impossible to see from the surface. Rico made several wasted trips to the bottom before finally spotting a vague crinkle in the white surface that turned out to be the final piece. Grabbing it up, he swam back to the edge, ran to the table and completed the iconic M in a solid time of 3′ 49″. Securing himself that all-important 1-Pointer and with it moving into a tie for first place on the points board, his dream of Big Chiefly glory still burning bright & true.

A remarkably entertaining event which saw seismic shifts in the landscape of the Mancathlon points table. Next week…the closest Grand Finale ever; with an incredible Four Mancathletes still in the running for Big Chiefdom and a similarly intense showdown heating up at the bottom of the table for the piteous “A Tergo” Trophy. A shock withdrawal from Gary leaves Anthony Browne, Simon Judkins and Gavin Marshall fighting it out, putting everything on the line to escape the dishonour of losing The Mancathlon 2009. Do miss this once in a lifetime event as Auckland’s greatest covers band meets “The Richest Prize in Sports Entertainment”. All the ingredients are in place for the Ultimate Mancathlon…

PHOTOS     http://www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622845654896/

THE LIFE AQUATIC

Mancathlete	Time	Mancathlon Points
Simon Watson	6′ 39″
AJ Sutton	3′ 0″	2 Points
Thomas Rowe	7′ 14″
Dave Parkinson	1′ 48″	4 Points
Shane Munro	6′ 06″
Dr Kirk Stevens	2′ 02″	3 Points
Brydon Price	8′ 22″
Stuart Brooke	1′ 33″	5 Points
Leighton Agnew	DNF
Conrad Blight	3′ 49″	1 Point

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE (After Nine Events & the Bonus Round)

1st	Conrad Blight	23
1st	Thomas Rowe	23
2nd	Stuart Brooke	22.5
3rd	Leighton Agnew	20.25
4th	Dr Kirk Stevens	11.5
5th	Dave Parkinson	11.25
6th	Brydon Price	8
6th	Azza Dolbel	8
7th	Dr Todd Keenan	4
7th	Simon Watson	4
7th	Shane Munro	4
8th	AJ Sutton	3.25
9th	Gavin Marshall	2.25
10th	Simon Judkins	2
Last	Anthony Browne	0

Event 8: Masterbrain III

The Eighth Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “Masterbrain III” – was held in a vast & empty Auditorium on a Sunday afternoon and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Brydon Price, Simon Judkins, Simon Watson, Leighton Agnew, Stuart Brooke, Conrad Blight, Dave Parkinson, Dr Todd Keenan, Dr Kirk Stevens, & Thomas Rowe.

For the past two seasons one man’s brain had wrecked untold devastation upon the egos and intellects of the Mancathletes; the hideously swollen encephalon of Quizmaster Staines had torn through our mental defenses like a giant, phallic tentacle in some twisted Japanese cartoon, blazing purple fire, smashing through the sides of buildings and cutting great swathes of destruction through fields of hot schoolgirls in sailors outfits. This year, with Staines on a mysterious escapade in the old country, Masterbrain III was crying out for a brand new Quizmaster, somebody with a powerful intellect, a cutting wit, an obscenely hairy chest, and a fiendish addiction to the labyrinthine extremities of Wikipedia. That man was Phillip Guthrie, a veteran Mancathlete now retired and living an hermetic existence in the Apennine Mountains of Italy in a small stone cottage; surrounded by tiny clay mementoes of his past that he painstakingly paints with human hair, smearing vivid pigments fashioned from crushed flower buds, soil and egg whites across the surface of these misshapen keepsakes. When the shrill sound of his bright orange Ericophone burst into life he snatched it up immediately, spitting a bitter mouthful of Campari on the rough dirt floor “Rico, I’m there” he shouted and amidst the snowy static of a long distance call I could hear the distinctive sound of a Murciélago clawing furiously at a gravel driveway as Phill peeled out, wrestling the bullish Italian sports car toward the nearest airport. 22 hours later a taxi was picking Phill up from Auckland’s international terminal & rushing him directly to the scene of this savage cerebral circus, a terrifying theatre of the absurd with Guthrie as the ringmaster.

Inside a vast & empty auditorium the Mancathletes gathered. A single spotlight shone down upon the stage, illuminating a wooden stool and the deep velvet curtains behind it. To stage right, a lecturn, a computer and a microphone. Standing behind the lecturn, Phillip Guthrie, his forehead a crinkled mass of lines as his cerebrum kicked into overdrive in preparation for the task ahead, all the blood rushing from his extremities to feed the curdling angry mass of brain meat throbbing inside his skull case. As the Mancathletes sat in the front row thoughtfully supping on cold cans of Double Brown to loosen their cortical folds, they reflected on previous incarnations of the Masterbrain and their own struggles with it. It was Guthrie himself who had been a 2 Time winner, but who was now staring down from atop the stage with cold, dead eyes; having no doubt scoured the far corners of the muntraweb & his own mental backwaters for the most devious questions possible. Beef had acheived the 2nd spot in ’07 but was struck down by the pink eye the following year & failed to place. Judkins had placed 3rd in ’07 and 2nd in ’08 and was feeling quietly confident that this would be the event that would pull him up from points stagnancy and away from the perilous “I Lost the Mancthlon” Trophy. Other men had been repeatedly smashed upon the rocks by the Brain in previous seasons, their intellects and egos brutalised beyond all recognition. What would this year’s festivities hold for them – glorious redemption, precious Mancathlon points and the respect of their peers? Or just more terrible degrading failure at the hands of The Masterbrain…

First man up, Brydon Price. Having achieved only 3 points in the season thus far Brydon knew it was time to consolidate his position and this could be the round to do it, if only he could stop sweating. As the harsh spotlight sizzled his brows and flooded his retinas he steeled himself for the intellectual onslaught ahead. Price came strong out of the gate, smacking aside the first two questions with ease before stumbling on a maths one; dusting himself off he proceeded to nail 4 more in a row to applause and slack-jawed disbelief from the other Mancathletes. What happens to 12% of Americans each year? They get arrested apparently. What happens to Price? The boy gets hisself the tick mark on 66.6% of his Masterbrain questions, a huge 10 out of 15. As he dismounted the stage the other competitor’s minds were filled with harried speculation – were the questions easier this year, or was Price just the business? The next competitor would answer this question. But not many others.

Simon stepped gingerly onto the stage and assumed the position on the kauri stool, his eyes dark beneath the brim of his fedora hat as the intense light pooled around him. Uncharacteristically nervous, Simon cradled the heartland beer in his hands and stared out into the darkness as the inquisition began. Too much time listening to The Happy Mondays & Inspiral Carpets in the early 90′s lost him a Nirvana question. Too much time living in the real world lost him the “Sophies Choice” & “Planet of the Apes” questions. A lack of depth in his awareness of historical celebrity gashhounds lost him the Syphilis question. But most surprisingly a distinct lack of patriotism lost him the Waitangi Day question. Simon managed to pull 6 burning questions from the hot fires of the Masterbrain, the next competitor would not be so lucky.

Reg Watson was feeling good, having picked up a Mancathlon Point earlier in the day at Event 7, and now having seen that competitors were getting at least half of the questions right, how hard could it be…? Hard as a gravediggers heart. Hard as a wedding night dick. Hard as a diamond in an ice storm. That’s right folks, Masterbrain was all things and more, and Reg was about to have his hopeful notions disabused with an horrendous ferocity. Taking a pass on the first 3 questions, he then managed to notch up a couple of gold stars with his know-how of mathematical shapes and grunge artists. But as the next 10 questions came tumbling from the Masterbrain’s gaping, salivating 3rd eye, Reg’s posture slumped steadily toward the floor. The Mancathletes looked on powerless, as Reg’s intelligence was whipped like a mangy cur, whimpering beneath Phillip’s vast capacity. What butterfly-shaped gland is located just in front of the windpipe? What’s the common term for epinephrine? Who was Addicted To Love in the 80′s? Reg was utterly impuissant, and soon limped from the stage, hiding his pain & brokenheartedness behind a wry smile.

Big Chief Leighton Agnew did his best to fight back against the Brain, but his 5/15 scorecard was not enough to put him in the Points. His current Mancathlon total of 20.25 still has him in the running to retain the title, but with 2 events to go and 3 strong competitors vying it out with him for top shelf status every event counts. One of those competitors was former champ Stu Beef, who was looking to kick with in his patented late season burst-to-victory. Beef was looking focused like a laser beam at a Spanish disco, cutting through the swirling dry ice of Guthrie’s esoteric interrogation. He nailed the first 5 questions one after t’other, and managed to pick off another 4 for an impressive total just short of Price’s, eliciting a jealous but impressed round of applause from his fellow competitors. Rico was up next and hoping to stamp his mark on the competition with his flowery private school education and rabid knowledge of all things useless & pop-cultural. Happily for him the Randominator had stuffed his goody bag with all kinds of picayune delights featuring the General Lee, Soylent Green, a Shark-Jumping Fonz and Ringo Starr. Especially happy because he assed out on most of the scientific questions and received an especially crushing blow to his ego when, in the tension and drama of the moment, Guthrie managed to ensnare him with the classic “What substance produced by the body is counteracted by antihistamine drugs?” trap. Damn your eyes Guthrie!!

As Rico exited the stage with a mildly creditable 7 points, Dave Parkinson stepped into the fray. Dave received 5 points for his knowledge of bars, lady boys and 80′s TV shows but found himself floundering when confronted by Delphic riddles such as “Triskaidekaphobes are afraid of what?” and “What car company’s name literally means “Bear” in Latin?”. When Dave answered the question “What’s the most popular animal eaten before it’s born and after it’s dead?” with “A Cow”, it had people wondering exactly how Dave was eating his cow foetuses.

Next off the blocks were the Mancathlon’s most famous Doctors, Todd and Kirk. Todd came up with a solid 7 points as he cogitated his way through Guthrie’s onslaught with a variety of facial yoga moves; creasing his forehead, stroking his chin, and cradling his face in his hands as if in terrible pain. Todd’s champagne campaign was undermined by weaknesses in Ancient History and Tikanga Maori, Wikipedia beckons. Dr Kirk’s run at the sun put him just outside the points with 6/15. One hand in his pocket and the other clutched firmly around a reassuringly cool Double Brown, Kirk’s face bore a look of resigned perplexity as he wrestled with the big questions of life like “The entire economy of the Island of Nauru depends on guano – what is guano?” and “What was the name of the robot on Buck Rogers?
”.

The final man on the stand was the Grey Ninja, Thomas Rowe. Thom took an extremely considered approach to the Masterbrain. Each question was carefully weighed in his mind and often when it seemed there was just no way he was going to get it, out came the answer. Blight & Todd were both hoping the big man would stumble and fall at the finish line but after getting cross marks on questions 13 & 14 he pulled through on the 15th to enter a desperate 3-way Nerd-Off.

Seemingly tentative in his earlier round Blight brought the thunder now, knocking 4 out the 5 questions clean out of the park in rapid, off-hand succession, pumping his fists in nebbish celebration as he exited the stage. Todd knocked off 3 of the tricky bastards and sat back down in the audience to watch Thom’s riposte. Thom smashed the first 3, slipped on the 4th and then was confronted with the final, all-important question…”What did He-man say when he lifted his sword and gained his strength?
”. As the answer flashed neon-like in the brains of most of the Mancathletes, Thom looked around, perplexed. While the dweebs were inside watching cartoons Thom was out throwing his butterfly knife into tree trunks, stealing hub caps, sculling cough syrup and finger banging.

“By the Power of Grayskull!!”

Thom & Todd moved into a final, 1 question showdown for 4th and 5th places. Todd’s superior synapses secured him a sweet 2-Pointer, but with a huge 22 Mancathlon points already up on the board for Thomas Rowe a One Pointer just pushed him even further ahead of the competition. With two key events still to play out in this, the “World’s Greatest Contest”, almost anything could happen. Ladies & Gentlemen of the muntra-web, watch this space.

PHOTOS     http://www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622805985974/

THE MIND EXPLOSION

Mancathlete	Score	Play Off	Sudden Death	Mancathlon Points
Brydon Price	10	-	-	5 Points
Simon Judkins	0	-	-
Simon Watson	0	-	-
Leighton Agnew	0	-	-
Stuart Brooke	9	-	-	4 Points
Conrad Blight	7	4	-	3 Points
Dave Parkinson	0	-	-
Dr Todd Keenan	7	3	1	2 Points
Dr Kirk Stevens	0	-	-
Thomas Rowe	7	3	0	1 Point

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE (After Eight Events & the Bonus Round)

1st	Thomas Rowe	23
2nd	Conrad Blight	22
3rd	Leighton Agnew	20.25
4th	Stuart Brooke	17.5
5th	Dr Kirk Stevens	8.5
6th	Brydon Price	8
6th	Azza Dolbel	8
7th	Dave Parkinson	7.25
8th	Dr Todd Keenan	4
8th	Simon Watson	4
8th	Shane Munro	4
9th	Gavin Marshall	2.25
10th	Simon Judkins	2
11th	AJ Sutton	1.25
Last	Gareth Ballard	0
Last	Anthony Browne	0

Event 7: Land Sailing

The Seventh Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “Land Sailing” – was held in the windswept backroads of Papakura on a Sunday afternoon and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Simon Watson, Thomas Rowe, Brydon Price, Conrad Blight, Dave Parkinson, Leighton Agnew, & Dr Kirk Stevens.

In Auckland City a furious rain was falling in great drifting sheets, soaking the streets and washing away the scum & degeneracy. Meanwhile though, in the remote religious commune of Papakura, dry & windy conditions swirling under a sky of dull, grey cloud would prove an ideal setting for the pitched battle of Blo-Karting about to unfold between 7 Mancathletes. As the Grand Finale grows ever closer so too does the hunger for Points, the urgency of cementing leads or closing gaps, of pushing forward with every iota of heart & soul towards the glory of Big Chiefdom, or of clawing oneself from the bottom of the table and the looming terror & debasement of the “I Lost the Mancathlon” Trophy.

On first sight, Blo-Karting was not the one. Turning up half an hour early to appraise the lay of the land, Mancathlon Events Sub-Committee President Rico was confronted with a most distressing spectacle. A rectangular carpark in the middle of nowhere dotted with lampposts; while drifting sedately around its edges in small, sail topped carts was an assortment of spotty, sweater clad teenagers in thick glasses with bad hair and weak chins. On the grass bordering the carpark sat half a dozen misanthropic teen boys who seemed to have come directly from a “D & D” bender in their father’s Corollas, and an awkward, hyperactive girl making bird calls with her pale hands cupped to her mouth. After all the chaos & disappointment of a discontinued Event 7 in Roto-Vegas the previous weekend, surely this wouldn’t be the sum-total of the Mancathlon 2009, how could Rico look himself in the eyes in his mirrored ceiling?

But fear not dear Readers, blownaway.co.nz’s Todd swung open the doors of his futuristic trailer and began to assemble the 3-wheeled karts on the moist grass; their interlocking modular components gradually taking form into a low, swift vehicle with a simple steering column and a pulley system for drawing the sail in tighter for speed, or letting it settle outwards to slow down and grab the next gust of wind. As the competitors began to arrive in their sleek motorcade of late-model Japanese sedans, a great and terrible wind emerged from the West. Rushing in from the coast and sweeping down towards the Hauraki Plains, it shook the tangled limbs of the trees bordering the carpark, bowing the upper reaches of their mighty trunks, rippling out across a neighbouring pond and tousling the immaculately coiffured hair of the gathered Mancathletes.

Therein began a 20 minute period of acclimatisation to the strange physics of land sailing. The Mancathletes eased their powerful frames into the small karts, applying the straps, gloves and helmets that would protect them in the event of a painful dumping. Rico had already witnessed one sensitive fellow barreling too hard into a windswept corner, his yacht scooped up by a powerful zephyr and dumped unceremoniously onto its side on the hard concrete. He had unwisely but autonomically flung out his arm to cushion the shocking blow, cracking his wrist in a hideous fashion and was later seen shuffling gingerly around the edge of the course, ruefully cradling his dick hand; his lower lip quivering, tears poised in their ducts to flow down his soft cheeks.

Like any new skill, things started slow, as the Mancathlete’s got their balls up and learned how to push the karts to their very limits, skating across the edge of the wind, turning aggressively into corners without skidding or lifting up onto two wheels, then flipping the sail to grab the wind from the other direction and pull yourself back up the inside of the track. There was one particularly tricky stretch after a long straight when the wind would die directly before the corner and if you failed to maintain momentum you’d be stuck in the doldrums, frustrated & angry, propelling yourself along the last stretch with your hands on the concrete.

Soon however, the contestants had learnt to harness the Breath of the Gods to powerful effect, soaring about the course in great audacious arcs, leaning into corners, tearing across the straights with their jaws clenched and their pupils narrowed to the tiniest black dots as every fibre in their body strained to pull them forward across the smooth concrete map laid out before them. Thom and Kirk in particular had taken to it like proverbial waterfowls or sh*t-loving ungulates; looking natural as they sailed their karts around the course, overtaking other competitors with confidence & power. It was time to let the games begin in earnest, Precious Mancathlon Points were on the line and f*ck-assing about was not the order of the day.

The event unfolded in two phases, the first of which involved groups of 4 & 3 Mancathletes in an alternating series of three lap races, vying to maintain a spot in the upper echelons and move through to the all important 6 lap finals. All the elements that make a classic Mancathlon event came rushing to the surface…controversy, physical danger, randomness, fierce competition, sudden reversals of fortune. Kodak moments in these first rounds – Dave falling under the spinning wheels of Rico’s kart and getting chewed up & spat out onto the concrete, Dr Kirk fanging around the far corner at high speeds, tipping his kart on its side and skidding across the ground almost upside down, and a classic photo-finish between Dave & Reg, just a bee’s dick in it, both competitors leaning forward in their karts, their faces strained & hopeful, willing the mercurial winds to pour one last burst of air into their sails.

Event Official Todd Hume took the raw data of these 6 rounds and applied a complex series of algorithms to them, emerging with a 4 man final and a 3 man repechage round. His formulae proved controversial and almost derailed the event amidst fierce debate and spontaneous eruptions of fist fighting followed by a tense standoff with a bowie knife and a tyre iron. Finally the deadlock was deemed intractable and it was voted that we accept the Hume Calculation intact, in all its flawed but principled reckoning. And so, the repechage round kicked off with Rowe, Price and Watson going for the gusto, steaming around the track in search of that Sweet One Pointer. Some canny racing lines, a strong push off and a few fortuitous gusts of wind carried Reg Watson over the finish line ahead of his rivals, picking up a Bona Fide Mancathlon Point in the process. Next up was the Blo-Kart Grand Finale, starring Stevens, Parkinson, Blight and Agnew in a windborne slobberknocker of unparalleled proportions. Over 6 hardfought laps they vied for the lead. Reigning Big Chief Leighton Agnew had struggled through previous rounds in a near-constant state of frustrated morass but all of a sudden he came online in grand style. No one was touching this man and he flew across the line at incredible speed, snatching the Big 5 Pointer in his spade-like hand as he went. Tearing in behind him was Dr Kirk Stevens, his hands clutching feverishly at his steering wheel and pulling in a frenzy on the sail rope; while a few seconds later came rushing in Blight & Parkinson, their eyes wide and the wind pressing them onwards, ever onwards into the annals of Mancathlon History. That’s “annals”…

PHOTOS     http://www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622681637721/

THE WIND VS. THE MANCATHLETES

Mancathlete	Placing	Mancathlon Points
Leighton Agnew	1st in the Final	5 Points
Dr Kirk Stevens	2nd in the Final	4 Points
Conrad Blight	3rd in the Final	3 Points
Dave Parkinson	4th in the Final	2 Points
Simon Watson	1st in the Repechage	1 Point
Brydon Price	2nd in the Repechage
Thomas Rowe	3rd in the Repechage

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE (After Seven Events & the Bonus Round)

1st	Thomas Rowe	22
2nd	Leighton Agnew	20.25
3rd	Conrad Blight	19
4th	Stuart Brooke	13.5
5th	Dr Kirk Stevens	8.5
6th	Azza Dolbel	8
7th	Dave Parkinson	7.25
8th	Simon Watson	4
8th	Shane Munro	4
9th	Brydon Price	3
10th	Gavin Marshall	2.25
11th	Dr Todd Keenan	2
11th	Simon Judkins	2
12th	AJ Sutton	1.25
Last	Gareth Ballard	0
Last	Anthony Browne	0

“The Legend of Azza Dolbel”

Inside each and every one of us is one true authentic swing, somethin’ we was born with, somethin’ that’s ours and ours alone, somethin’ that can’t be taught to ya or learned, somethin’ that gots to be remembered. Over time the world can rob us of that swing, it get buried inside us under all our wouldas and couldas and shouldas. Some folk even forget what they swing was like…

But not Azza Dolbel, motherf*ckers! In a special Bonus Point playoff Dolbel swung on 20 baseballs and knocked 15 out of the park to earn himself a limited edition nickel plated Mancathlon Point to add to his rapidly expanding collection. Ichiban Baseboru.

Event 6: Sprint Cars

The Sixth Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “Sprint Cars” – was held in the Hinterlands of Roto-Vegas on a Saturday afternoon and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

AJ Sutton, Azza Dolbel, Shane Munro, Kirk Stevens, Brydon Price, Conrad Blight, Thomas Rowe, Leighton Agnew, Stuart Brooke, Dave Parkinson, & Simon Watson.

Somewhere beyond the Bombay Hills lies a mystical land, shrouded in clouds of sulphuric smoke tinged with the rich scents of cannibus sativa and deepfried potato products. Men in red tracksuit pants limp down footpaths clutching green cardboard boxes of Waikato Draught and screaming at the sky, while crumpled Japanese sedans with plastic hubcaps float through the streets radiating basslines from “2Pacalypse Now”. Further out beyond the haze lie rolling green fields dotted with ancient stones and overpriced tourist attractions. At the end of a lonely metal road just off SH5 a select group of New Zealand’s finest Pro-am motorsport artistes had gathered to engage in an exhibition match that would shake the very foundations of midget racing throughout the world, yes ladies & gentlemens, the Mancathlon had landed in Mamaku.

Eleven Brave Mancathletes had been spat from the comfortable pink womb of the Grey Lynn / Ponsonby / Mt Eden nexus into the cold & brutal world that lay beyond its borders; shivering and covered in amniotic fluid. As we stood in the observation deck overlooking the cambered concrete track below, some random conglomerate of bogans were trying their hand at the noble sport of Sprint Car Racing and we watched them, like ants crawling pathetically in a warm, viscous puddle of Coca Cola as they swam slowly around the track. We stroked our square, stubbled jaws in contemplation and squinted our eyes, was this the limit of this facility? Of these machines? Or were these sizzlechests too scared to unleash the anger within, to set the raging beast of their id tearing through the quotidian grind of their everyday existence, exploding in a burst of heavy footed acceleration across the track as sparks showered from engines and great torn arcs of rubber carved cursive, frenzied signatures in deep, molten black across that grey canvas.

I’m not gonna lie to you dear reader. I can’t remember who went first. I can’t remember who went last. Here’s what I do remember -

The weight of these things, the roar of the engine, the whole arrangement shuddering as it sheared sideways across the concrete accelerating far too hard into a corner. Leighton doing about 16 laps instead of 12 cos he missed the electronic tags on the finish line as he Steve McQueen’d it over the ridge of the hill, 2 wheels suspended in the air spinning and tearing at the atmosphere as time slowed and his sprint car soared through the ether, moving through roaring waves of sound that flowed outwards from the cage of red tubes and the shaking, angry engine. AJ & Dave a mere .09 of a second apart from each other, like brothers from another mother. Thom rocking a hugely dominant time almost a full second ahead of anyone else despite having Big Leight-Dogg weighing his ride down in the passenger seat. Reg making a triumphant uprush from the bottom of the Mancathlon table with a sweet 3-Pointer and saying goodbye to the prospect of his name gracing the side of that undignified and much avoided Trophy. Rico tearing wildly out of the gate and then proceeding to flap and skid about the course like a huge bug with one wing spinning angrily and out-of-control across a tabletop, his foot stapled to the accelerator. The intense expression on every Mancathlete’s face as he breasted the hill, clutching the steering wheel with locked, rigid arms as the whole cart shook and bounced, swinging around in a wide arc trying to catapult it through the corner and up the next ridge.

And as the dust settled around us, we turned our heads to the South-East. The strange sirens call of Roto-Vegas was ringing out across the vales, a haunting song heard clear in the windless calm, drawing us to her bosom with whispered promises of hot chips, cold beers, bad dance music and lasers…

PHOTOS     http://www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622772713532/

THE TIMING

Mancathlete	Total Time	Hottest Lap
Leighton Agnew	3:34:73	13:07
Conrad Blight	2:57:97	13:08
Thomas Rowe	2:41:48	12:98
Azza Dolbel	2:42:33	13:07
AJ Sutton	2:45:49	13:27
Dave Parkinson	2:45:48	12:60
Dr Kirk Stevens	3:17:16	12:70
Brydon Price	2:56:09	14:13
Shane Munro	2:48:46	13:37
Stuart Brooke	2:53:30	12:98
Simon Watson	2:45:01	13:27

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE (After Six Events & the Bonus Round)

1st	Thomas Rowe	22
2nd	Conrad Blight	16
3rd	Leighton Agnew	15.25
4th	Stuart Brooke	13.5
5th	Azza Dolbel	8
6th	Dave Parkinson	5.25
7th	Dr Kirk Stevens	4.5
8th	Shane Munro	4
9th	Simon Watson	3
9th	Brydon Price	3
10th	Gavin Marshall	2.25
11th	Dr Todd Keenan	2
11th	Simon Judkins	2
12th	AJ Sutton	1.25
Last	Jason Gregg	0
Last	Gareth Ballard	0
Last	Anthony Browne	0

Event 5: Treefelling

The Fifth Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “Treefelling” – was held at El Rancho on a Saturday afternoon and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Azza Dolbel, Thomas Rowe, Leighton Agnew, Simon Watson, Stuart Brooke, Conrad Blight, and AJ Sutton.

Chewing tobacco. Scratching your balls. Dodging responsibility. Peeing in the sink. Exaggerating your sexual prowess. All of these things are manly. But it’s well known across the globe & down through history that there is only one truly gold-standard activity when it comes to manliness, and that it involves a man, an axe and a tall tree. That’s right ladies and gentlemens, this week’s fun activity is chopping down pine trees with a Fuller 4-Pound; the enduring prosumer axe that had previously decimated treated hardwood poles in ’06 and ’07 and was now hungry for the taste of real tree. Former Big Chief Stuart Brooke had spent the last 10 years growing the perfect tree on the sprawling backlots of El Rancho in Beachlands, 25 feet tall, 26 inches around, clad in grizzled bark and shooting skywards like fireworks frozen in flight. But these christmas trees had a very special gift to give this year and that was their own lives in the service of a greater good – the Mancathlon ’09. So prepare yourselves dear reader,  pull up that old leather armchair, plug a little tobacco in your pipe, pour some whiskey in the lowball and get ready for a true tale of man vs nature, of a group of men prepared to stand headstrong into the buffeting winds of mortality & cry havok.

A lush and sheltered copse of radiata pines was the setting for this latest showdown; the still, warm air and the dappled sunlight through the trees, little birds flitting between the branches, blissfully unaware of the metal storm about to be unleashed on this tiny Arcadia. Another 7-UP event meant that points were on the cards for a goodly proportion of the contestants, but that 2 unlucky Mancathletes would be going home with that distinctive ashy taste of regret & chagrin hot upon their tongues. Treefelling also saw the ’09 debut of Simon “Reginald” Watson. Reg had woken in the middle of the night, sweat pouring down his face, eyes wide and panicked, a banshee-like wail echoing around his well-appointed master bedroom. The spectre of the “I Lost the Mancathlon” Trophy ’09 was haunting his dreams again, its silvery surface glowing with an unholy sentience; a mirrored abyss staring back into Reg’s soul as formless letters danced & swirled across its front, briefly coalescing and then melting into gas again. What did those letters say…was it a G? an S? or was it a D? an A? or possibly a J?

Stu had been through the wooded grove and selected 7 uniformly girthed trees to be attacked with axes, a number spray painted on their side. Rico had taken a goat, a sack of barley and some mangoes to sacrifice to the Randominator which had in turn issued him the list for this week. Thom had on his orange safety vest, so that took care of any safety concerns right there. Each Mancathlete wandered through the woods looking for their assigned tree, clearing the ground of obstacles, chopping branches and twigs off surrounding trees to ensure that they had a clear swinging arc in which to wield their axes. A rope was attached to the upper boughs of the trees to help guide them on their descent. A chainsaw roared as the lower limbs of the trees were sheared off for “easy access”. Meanwhile first man on the plate Azza Dolbel was clutching his axe in a death grip, standing rigid & transfixed as he stared at the tree rising up before him, his adrenal glands pumping out great wet jets of epinephrine into his system, preparing his body for the brutal exertion ahead. And 3, 2, 1, GO! Azza started swinging like Birkenhead, great raw, lusty strokes of the axe biting deep into the sappy wood as he rained blow after blow upon the the tree trunk. Making awesome progress on his front notch he moved to the other side of the tree and began work on the second kerf. But then Azza’s energy levels suddenly hit the brick wall of lactic acid buildup, the fire in eyes was rapidly dying, his big arms were turning to rubber, hanging loose & pendulous from their sockets. He knew he needed to dig deep, to go to that special angry place inside. And go there he did, diving down through the dark waters, forging ever deeper to the crushing fathomless extremities of rage and pain to find the bright shining moment of intensity that would illuminate his entire being with pure, explosive focus. All of a sudden, Azza came alive again, the axe starting biting voraciously into the splintering wood, the tree shuddered, shook and then fell like a giant to the earth. Azza crumpled on the ground, utterly drained, his time 1 minute and 59 secs.

Next up came the White Ninja, Thomas Rowe. This 7 foot Goliath from the Manawatu sauntered onto the course, casually hefting the axe like he was about to pick his teeth with it. A few test swings and he was into it, drawing the axe back in massive powerful arcs and then bringing the blade crashing back into the body of the tree. Somehow the hard pine seemed to have turned to soft butter in the sun, like Rico in 06 and Trail in 07, Thom’s axe carved through the wood like it was nothing, great chunks of pine bursting from the side of the tree as he smashed into it again and again. In less than 60 secs his tree shuddered and fell, whipping down to the earth and forcing the unprepared Mancathletes to dash wildly in all directions to avoid the collapsing trunk. As AJ and Stu leapt balletically to the side Azza realised that he was not going to make it in time and curled into a defensive foetal position, clutching his head in his hands. Luckily for Azza the upper reaches of the tree slammed into the ground just to the side of him. We resolved to stand slightly further back on the next chop.

Big Leight-Dogg’s sexy shirt photo had failed to secure him precious Mancathlon points the previous week and he knew that if he was to keep pace with an increasingly furious battle on the top of the table he would need to let his axe do the talking. But instead of talking, he made that sh*t sing. His axe whistled through the air and chunked into the tree, Leighton was looking focused and strong. But like all of us old pricks, as he hit the one minute mark the effort starting taking its toll, the breathing became ragged, the hits less forceful, the rhythm slowing from furious to consistent. But Leights pushed through the membranous pain barrier and burst roaring from it as the tall pine fell to his mighty blows. Reg Watson had been watching all of this with a mixture of savage excitement and trepidation. His hands were clenching and unclenching, anxious to feel the power of the axe as his Norse-fury flowed like electricity through his arms and down through the wood and metal into the tree, to see splinters and sawdust burst from the side of the tree & rain down on the earth, to smell pine sap mixing with sweat & cheap cologne, swirling in the air around him like some primal masculine mist. Reg started strong and faded fast. His axe became heavier and heavier until the head weighed about 50 kgs and was dragging his arms down to the ground. Thom yelled encouragement through a loud hailer to his Marton brother, Reg felt the heart of a Rangitikei Plains Warrior pounding hard in his chest and made those last hacking blows through the final knotty bands of wood until the tree finally collapsed down.

Stu Beef went at it like a man possessed. Hacking, chopping, slashing, raining blow after powerful blow against the trunk. But still the tree would not yield, where Thom’s turned to butter this tree was going british steel on him. 2 minutes and 19 seconds later the axe saw daylight as it burst through middle of the tree which toppled monumentally, sending a powerful shockwave of air roiling out across the gathered observers. Next up, C Blight, a competitor who held the record chop in the first year and then choked pathetically in the second year, what would this new incarnation hold for him: Glory? or Terrible Failure? He started swinging his axe confidently taking big, cake-like chunks of wood out of the front of the trunk. Things were looking promising, technique was strong, rhythm good, a very large wedge was forming. He moved around to rear of the tree and as he did so felt all the energy draining from his limbs. The pace was rapidly slowing and the axe was growing heavier and heavier. Just under 2 minutes, tree down. The final man on the blocks was AJ Sutton, suitably attired in his lucky muscle-T, flashing the gun show for Stu’s grandma. AJ delivered a solid chop but died near the end. Stu looked on intently, firing psychic messages across the grass between them “Fail AJ, AJ the axe is getting heavy, heeeaaavvvyy, AJ you’re tired, you can’t go on”. It worked, AJ’s tree fell to the ground at 2 mins 23 secs, putting him 4 secs past Beef and just outside the sweet, sweet Mancathlon points for Event Number 5.

Final score for the day. Man – 7, Nature – 0. But wait til we reach peak oil; then we’re poked.

PHOTOS     http://www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622575443443/

THE FALL OF THE WOOD

Azza Dolbel	1 min 59 secs
Thomas Rowe	59 secs
Leighton Agnew	1 min 48 secs
Simon Watson	3 mins 15 secs
Stuart Brooke	2 mins 19 secs
Conrad Blight	1 min 55 secs
AJ Sutton	2 mins 23 secs

IN OTHER NEWS

06 & 07 Legend Dunc Reynolds has opted not to apply for an extension on the Holden Statute and has regretfully tendered his withdrawal from the 09 Mancathlon citing continued foot injury issues and work commitments. There may be a special post-comp guest slot from Dunc at the Karaoke Finale, watch this space.

Ex-Mancathlon Phenom Phill Guthrie has returned from a sexualified & religified tour of Western Europe with the express purpose of blowing your minds out your skull cavities in his new role as Quizmaster of Masterbrain III. He is currently sequestered at an undisclosed location north of Auckland collating the most arcane trivia and abstruse scientific knowledge known to man for next weekend’s event. Don’t bother preparing. You can’t.

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE (After Five Events & the Bonus Round)

1st	Thomas Rowe	17
2nd	Conrad Blight	16
3rd	Leighton Agnew	15.25
4th	Stuart Brooke	13.5
5th	Dr Kirk Stevens	4.5
6th	Shane Munro	4
7th	Dave Parkinson	3.25
8th	Azza Dolbel	3
8th	Brydon Price	3
9th	Gavin Marshall	2.25
10th	Dr Todd Keenan	2
10th	Simon Judkins	2
11th	AJ Sutton	0.25
Last	Simon Watson	0
Last	Jason Gregg	0
Last	Gareth Ballard	0
Last	Anthony Browne	0

Bonus Round: Hot or Not II

The Bonus Round of the 2009 Mancathlon – “Hotornot.com” – was held on the Muntra-Web over a 72 Hour Period and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Gareth Ballard, Shane Munro, Dr Kirk Stevens, Azza Dolbel, Leighton Agnew, Brydon Price, Thomas Rowe, Dr Todd Keenan, Stuart Brooke, & Conrad Blight.

For one very special long weekend, the ladies of the world were treated to the supreme visual pleasure of 10 Mancathletes gracing their LCDs and haunting their sexual fantasies. All across the globe, throughout various timezones, they logged onto Hotornot.com, anxious to check out some hot man action but little realising the sheer, overwhelming cascade of sensation that was about to gush through their lithe feminine forms as they came face to face with the very finest that 21st century manhood has to offer, 10 of the best, the Mancathlon Season 4. All of a sudden their limbic lobes fired up like jet engines, hosing down their brains’ reward centres with sweet dopamine, firing off powerful electrical charges throughout their central nervous systems; their bodies flushed, tender and tingling with a level of arousal they had never experienced before.

While the women of the world bathed luxuriously in these potent images of masculine strength it was for the men themselves an altogether more serious affair. With pride on the line, half a season left and battling it out with everything at their disposal, the business of being beautiful was no laughing matter. For one man in particular the stakes were higher than ever, Munro had suffered a shocking loss in the ’06 incarnation earning himself a mere 5/10 from the ladies and receiving a crushing blow to his ego that had taken him many years of delicious beer flavoured self-medication to resolve. And while that first season featured a relatively crude array of snapshot-style pictures with only one inveterate poser in the mix, this years bonus round sported an incredible array of sophisticated portraits, from Dr Kirk’s professionally-lit and styled glamour shot, to Munro’s chest hair baring “pose of thoughfulness”, to Stu Beef taking the “Spanish Gardener” to the tree tops and of course Gazza’s riff on the Middle-Eastern problem.

24 hours in and the tale of the tape was an interesting one…A serious Friday night in America seemed to be punishing Gary for his dancing terrorist “Durk-durk-Allah. Durka durka, Mohammed Jihad”, who by this stage had amassed a bottom rung score of 6.8. Stu Beef was on a dangerously low score with 7.9, his clean-cut and chiseled appearance possibly out of touch with the darker, edgier female Twilight fans who populated the muntraweb. Though this theory was soon blown out of the water by Dr Todd whose dark and edgy ode to the female Twilight fans was sitting a mere 0.2 points above Stu’s. Meanwhile, Kirk and Thom had shot straight to the top of the charts with an early lead on a huge 9.6 each; they had wisely opted to show a little skin, and in Thom’s case sport a headband and clutch a bright red apple, and it was paying big dividends. Blight meanwhile had received insufficient votes to rack up a score, and Azza Dolbel had his submission soundly rejected by the site’s moderators for featuring one of George Lucas’s prototype computer generated haircuts from the early 80′s.

Come Sunday and the playing field had shifted around. The big movement was Shane Munro who had surged upward to become the dominant force in the contest with a Super Hot 9.9/10, putting him in the top 0.000001% percentile of Worldwide Hotness, a massive turnaround for this once broken man. Meanwhile Rico’s beachfront portrait managed to convey the pure fiction that he had a tan & could surf; the world was fooled and voted accordingly, boosting him into 2nd place with Dr Kirk on 9.8 each. Leight Dogg’s sensitive, shirt-wearing jpeg had been a huge hit with the churchy types on Sunday morning but as the heathens & dissolute teens woke up with hangovers on Sunday afternoon the votes swung round to the brooding, monochromatic Dr Todd whose score fired upwards over Sunday night. Brydon’s steady 9 pointer took a hit on Sunday night, dipping to 8.8. Meanwhile, Gary Ballard was undergoing a renaissance of approval as the ladies of the world warmed to his combination of extreme political fervour, culturally appropriate Muslim headwear and boyish charm.

Monday night and all the chips were down on the table. Sweet victory for some and bitter chagrin for others. The question on everybody’s lips is gonna be why are these scores so damn high? Two answers. First up, we some hot motherf*ckers, ain’t no bout a doubt it. Number two, the normalisation curve that the site uses now days puts everyone on a spectrum from about 5.5 to 9.9, such that the nastiest looking dudes can only  get as low as 5.5 so they don’t feel too bad about themselves, but the cream still rises to the top. In the end Munnas just couldn’t quite maintain that top spot, and was eclipsed at the last moment by Stevens and Blight, the hottest sonsabitches in the Mancathlon with an unadulterated 9.9 out of 10. Coming in with shiny Silver Medals for Hotness were Munnas, Rowe and Keenan with a big 9.8 on the sexual richter scale. Only just off the pace was Stu Beef whose photo had valiantly fought its way up to 9.6 and followed close behind by Leights, Gary and Brydon in the mid to low 9′s. Word up.

1. Gareth “Corky the Terrorist” Ballard = 9.3/10

2. Shane “Mr Redemption” Munro = 9.8/10    (2 Points)

3. Dr Kirk “Body Shots” Stevens  = 9.9/10    (4.5 Points)

4. Azza “CGI” Dolbel = 0/10 (Disqualified)

5. Leighton “The Shirt” Agnew = 9.4/10

6. Brydon “Cletus” Price = 9.2/10

7. Thomas “White Apple Ninja” Rowe = 9.8/10    (2 Points)

8. Dr Todd “Darkness” Keenan = 9.8/10    (2 Points)

9. Stuart “Spanish Gardener” Brooke = 9.6/10

10. Conrad “The Squint” Blight = 9.9/10    (4.5 Points)

THE WORLD JUDGES

Mancathlete	Sat pm	Sun am	Sun pm	Mon am	Mon pm
Gareth Ballard	6.8	8.6	9	9.3	9.3
Shane Munro	9.4	9.6	9.9	9.9	9.8
Dr Kirk Stevens	9.6	9.8	9.8	9.8	9.9
Azza Dolbel	0	0	0	0	0
Leighton Agnew	9.2	9.7	9.4	9.4	9.4
Brydon Price	9	9	8.8	9.2	9.2
Thomas Rowe	9.6	9.4	9.4	9.6	9.8
Dr Todd Keenan	8.1	9.2	9.2	9.8	9.8
Stuart Brooke	7.9	8.9	9.3	9.6	9.6
Conrad Blight	-	9.1	9.8	9.9	9.9

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE (After Four Events & the Bonus Round)

1st	Conrad Blight	13
2nd	Stuart Brooke	12.5
3rd	Thomas Rowe	12
4th	Leighton Agnew	11.25
5th	Dr Kirk Stevens	4.5
6th	Shane Munro	4
7th	Dave Parkinson	3.25
8th	Brydon Price	3
9th	Gavin Marshall	2.25
10th	Dr Todd Keenan	2
10th	Simon Judkins	2
11th	Azza Dolbel	1
12th	AJ Sutton	0.25
Last	Simon Watson	0
Last	Jason Gregg	0
Last	Gareth Ballard	0
Last	Duncan Reynolds	0
Last	Anthony Browne	0

Event 4: Great Kiwi Pie Cookoff

The 4th Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “The Great Kiwi Pie Cookoff – was held in a Futuristic Cooking Bunker on a Saturday Afternoon and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Simon Judkins, Conrad Blight, Brydon Price, Stuart Brooke, Dr Kirk Stevens, Leighton Agnew, & Shane Munro.

The slow burn of the Mancathlon 09 exploded in delicious meaty flames this past weekend as 7 Mancathletes battled it out for the title of NZ’s Greatest Meat Pie Chef; using every iota of culinary cunning & creativity at their disposal, they poured a lifetime of passion & pride into those pastry parcels. A slender turnout for Event 4 brought with it the awareness that most men would be in the points, but that 2 unfortunate souls would be cooking their way to the bottom of the table. The 07 Chili Champ Duncan Reynolds was off the radar, floating on a lilo in a swimming pool at an undisclosed location in the greater Auckland region, a cold VB in each hand and a B&H hanging insouciantly from his cracked lips. With this former chef de cuisine out of the mixture the top spot was well and truly up for grabs, and grab at it they would, like a cage full of angry monkeys. Presiding over this barndance were our three Celebrity Judges – David Sherlock, Professional Cookery Lecturer at AUT’s School of Hospitality. Bosun Paki, CEO of Luv-a-pie, Delicious Home-style Pies based in Onehunga. And last but not least, a regular Kiwi Joe with a taste for hot, meaty pies; the man on the street, the man who is the streets, Rowan Graham from the Hawkes Bay. A great weight of responsibility would soon settle on the broad, hairy shoulders of these 3 individuals, for when you judge a man’s pie…you judge that man’s entire existence.

For the contestants, not only was there an hour and a half of hunched and focused preparation in the kitchen, followed by 30-40 minutes of hopeful baking at 180 degrees, but most men had gotten up at dawn that morning to begin their masterpieces. Following 2 hours of pressups on their knuckles, beating themselves with rattan sticks, and deep meditation exercises in which they visualized giant meat pies drifting slowly in from the ocean towards the land like delicious, puffy brown clouds; thick trails of perfect brown gravy sluicing from them and draping themselves in gelatinous arcs across the coastline while angels wheeled around the periphery of the scene firing flaming arrows of rosemary, oregeno & thyme leaves into the pies, their laughter peeling out clear & clarion-like in the cool spring air. Anyway, following all that, they had to source the shin, blade and chuck steaks that would form the basis of their meaty magna opera, the flour and butter, the baking beans and paper, and then of course the braising. The all important braising, that time honoured process of hot searing followed by long, slow, wet cooking to break down the tough connective tissues and unleash that sweet, sweet gravy, would happen in the Mancathletes’ kitchens that morning. 3 hours of slow motion cooking that would ultimately make or break their champagne campaign later in the day. For some, that special alchemical reaction would yield pure delicious victory, as contestants experimented with cans of Guinness, various vegetables, classy cured meats, homemade stock, caramelized onions, shots of Islay malt whiskey; while for others…

Simon Judkins

A dedicated home gourmand with a well-documented streak of flamboyance, Simon had picked himself up a single point for his ’07 Con Carne but was haunted by this low ranking and determined to gun for the top spot. He submitted a very nice looking pie that was garnished with a single green bayleaf, this clearly unmanly accoutrement was greeted with snorts of derision by the gathered contestants and was roundly punished by the sagacious judging panel who described it thusly – “Points won for bayleaf in Appearance but lost for the same reason in Manliness” & “Leaves are not manly”. Nevertheless Simon’s knowledge & craft saw him push through in the Colour, Texture and Aroma categories to pick up a strong total of 81.3 %, and with it post his first 2 Mancathlon Points in the ’09 season. Celebrating with a Swappa full of delectable, icy cold Homebrew; his pinky finger unashamedly extending from the bottle at a poised 90 degree angle.

Conrad Blight

Blight had gone balls out in the Chili Comp two years ago, throwing a wild assortment of expensive ingredients into his chili pot. He was roundly punished that year for his hubris, and this year had resolved to keep it simple, focused, and manly. A Steak, Guiness, Whiskey and Mushroom Pie topped with Cracked Pepper was his ticket to the big time and this time round it brought him the big prize. Clearly in the lead with 85.3% his pie was praised for the flakiness of its pastry, the moist, melt in your mouth meat, the distinctive whiskey flavour and the classy appearance. The most delicious man gravy in the Mancathlon. It’s official.

Brydon Price

Brydon Price had done his homework. It was impressive. Made his own pastry, which he subsequently “blind-baked” with special baking beans which weigh down the pastry while you pre-cook it. Spent hours on the braising. End result was a damn fine looking pie with a delicious heart. On the day it netted him 2nd place with a score of 83.17% and 4 Mancathlon Points. But in a cruel & controversial twist of fate, it was revealed in a Mancathlon Post Event Audit that his total percentage was in fact 82.2, a mere 0.1 less than Stu “Beef” Brooke who was subsequently elevated to 2nd place. Investigations revealed that the judge who had calculated the final scores was suffering from “Meat Delirium”, the main symptoms of which are confusion, diarrhoea, disorientation, agitation, hallucinatory visions, and an intense, overwhelming thirst for ice cold domestic lagers.

Stuart Brooke

Stu Beef is on a roll. Ain’t no bout a doubt it folks. Having cracked 2nd place in not only “Hunting Humans” but also “Track & Field” the previous week he was looking to put some more Precious Mancathlon Points on the leaders’ board & wrassle the coveted top spot back from towering Big Chief Leighton Agnew. Approaching the task at hand with his usual steely-jawed focus and aggressive dedication he also had a secret weapon in his arsenal. Pancetta. Like any real kiwi bloke he could neither pronounce nor spell it. But he knew the two things he needed to know…it came from a dead animal and it was delicious. Bosun from Luvapie described the end result – “Best Flavoured Pie, but pastry wasn’t as flaky. Manly though”. Dave Sherlock described the Pie as “Moist to the point of weeping”, but if Beef’s pie was crying then it was meaty, brown tears of victory with an 82.3% total earning him 2nd Place Pie and pushing him straight to the head of the pack with 12.5 Mancathlon Points.

Dr Kirk Stevens

Dr Kirk had failed to adequately vent his pies and they exploded everywhere. One of the judges cruelly commented that Kirk was clearly not a Doctor of Pie Making. These are the kind of hurtful words that can really stay with a man. Although, how awesome would it be if you could be a Doctor of Pie Making? Other judges said “Pastry was unusual, flavour needed. Most Manly Pie of All” and “Too much gravy. Gravy is manly though”.

Leighton Agnew

Leight-Dogg took the road less travelled for his pie with his high-concept Roast-in-a-Pie. Leighton’s entry was designed to be a full, delicious Sunday roast encased tenderly within golden brown pastry. Losing points for his dry meat he nevertheless received accolades for the fine appearance of his pie which definitely looked the most “store-bought”. If it was sealed in plastic and had Greg Murphy with a sh*t eating grin pulling the thumbs up on the front you’d definitely grab it from out of the pie warmer at the Shell station. Except given what we spent we’d have to charge you about 12 bucks a pie to recoup. Leights copped a solid Mancathlon Point for his efforts keeping him in a strong position to defend his hard won Big Chief Trophy from the barbarians amassing at the gate.

Shane Munro

Another Guinness based entry, this pie had a lot of potential but in the end failed to satisfy the 3 exacting judges. “Tough meat, little empty” they pronounced. “Meat overcooked” they commented. “Like peppered cardboard” they cruelly jested. Actually no I made that last one up sorry brother. To be honest there wasn’t a pie there that day that you wouldn’t happily chow down on, the standard was incredibly high and twas a fine day of competition by all concerned. Peace to tha Streetz.

Big thank yous are due to our three Celebrity Judges, and to Renny Apprea at AUT Cooking School for the world class kitchen in which to construct our tributes to that noblest of kiwi culinary artforms…the Meat Pie.

PHOTOS     www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622482087921/

PIE SCORES

	Look	Colour	Texture	Aroma	Taste	Vision	Power	Total
Simon	11.7	13.7	12.3	12.3	25.0	3.0	3.3	81.3
Conrad	13.3	12.5	13.7	12.3	25.3	3.7	4.5	85.3
Brydon	11.0	11.5	12.3	11.3	28.7	3.7	3.7	82.2
Stuart	11.7	12.3	11.7	12.3	26.3	4.0	4.0	82.3
Dr Kirk	9.7	11.0	10.0	10.0	22.7	3.0	3.2	69.5
Leights	12.7	12.3	10.7	11.0	24.7	3.0	4.2	78.5
Shane	12.0	12.0	11.3	12.0	23.3	3.7	3.3	77.7

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE (After Four Events)

1st	Stuart Brooke	12.5
2nd	Leighton Agnew	11.25
3rd	Thomas Rowe	10
4th	Conrad Blight	8.5
5th	Dave Parkinson	3.25
6th	Brydon Price	3
7th	Gavin Marshall	2.25
8th	Simon Judkins	2
8th	Shane Munro	2
9th	Azza Dolbel	1
10th	AJ Sutton	0.25
Last	Dr Kirk Stevens	0
Last	Dr Todd Keenan	0
Last	Duncan Reynolds	0
Last	Gareth Ballard	0
Last	Anthony Browne	0
Last	Jason Gregg	0
Last	Simon Watson	0

Event 3: Track and Field

The 3rd Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “Track & Field” – was held in an Athletics Stadium on a Sunday Afternoon and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Shane Munro, Azza Dolbel, Conrad Blight, Brydon Price, Leighton Agnew, Dave Parkinson, Stuart Brooke, Anthony Browne, Thomas Rowe, and Gavin Marshall.

Sun is shining, weather is sweet, time for a motherf*cking track meet. After another 2 week stretch of downtime the ludicrosity was back in business, and business was good. In the mix this weekend were 10 Mancathletes, a light smattering of comely spectators, a sporting stadium fit for the ’88 Commonwealth Games, a few key items of sporting equipment purloined from Howick College, and of course the heady smell of testosterone, sweat & cheap aftershave eddying about the arena in small ghostlike tornadoes.

As the Mancathletes underwent their own cursory stretching routine or lightly jogged around the track bemoaning a litany of recurrent injuries that would no doubt plague their performance and undermine what would otherwise be total physical dominance on their part, former Big Chief Stu Beef got down to the brass tacks of organizing these 10 rugged individualists into some semblance of order. Beef concocted a canny system of point scoring that would guarantee congruence between the multiple disciplines on offer that day; ensuring that the cream would truly rise to the top wherein the thick, clotted scum of victory could be scooped off by the omnipresent Mancathlon officials in their dark suits and immaculately coiffured hair, and ladled heavily upon the scales of greatness whereby a thick brass arrow would settle upon a final resting point which would subsequently be inscribed on the chalk board of history by the quivering and delicately manicured hand of the finest beauty that New Plymouth had produced in 50 years, her lithesome and gorgeous form marred only by a 6th finger on her right hand that launched outwards at a 90 degree angle and twitched nervously, assuming a strange, clawed form as her pale, toned arm swept across that dark board.

In a sense this Track & Field Day was the perfect distillation of a set of physical strengths that had allowed our distant ancestors to survive, adapt and flourish against fantastical odds to procreate and launch their precious genetic code far into the future to present day light-industrial Onehunga. Even in prehistoric times there was the ever present threat that hubby would come home from the factory early and you’d have to scootch over the fence with your dacks round your ankles and your forehead caked with sweat, and only one man was ever going to dominate at this event – Thomas Rowe, the 7 foot giant coming Straight out of Marton. He saw some stiff competition from Leighton with his assured but ultimately hubristic scissor-kick technique, from Stu Beef with his powerful legs and indomitable spirit, and from Conrico with his gazelle-like legs and his weird zen intensity. But only Thom Bus could break the intimidating 1.44 metre mark and make it look like he still had more to give, all those long hours of frenetic lovemaking with countless supine beauties having given him the Mancathlon’s most flexible back as he flowed over the bar with surprising grace. An honourable mention goes to Dave Parkinson, a brand new Mancathlete with the guts and gusto to make a run at the big time – his uncanny twin-footed launch and graceful technique over the bar affording him a placing well beyond what his stature dictated.

Next up, the discus. 1 kilo of hardened rubber in the form of a streamlined disc, to be launched into the air with a combination of power and looseness that would ideally see it slicing through the sky and surfing the empyrean waves to victory. Sadly for many of us the theory soon met a firm wall of practice as the discus stalled in mid air and plummeted to the earth, dragging our points average down with it. Azza, Leighton and Thomas seemed to have unlocked the code, their disci (?) somehow both heavier and more aerodynamic than the average man’s. Was it power, was it technique, was it a muscular forearm borne of many youthful nights of onanastic fury? Whatever it was, these dudes had it in spades. But hold the phone dear public, there’s swagger and then there’s Stu and Gav. These two juggernauts launched their circles skywards with awesome strength & control, seemingly running fixed along a rail to heaven; carried sailing by their screams into the sky like a pure beam of light surging into the darkness of space.

Enough of the field we said, time for a little track action. Let’s run like hell down a track and make it harder on ourselves by having to jump over a bunch of stupid metal hurdles, thus exacerbating the very real risk of somebody blowing out their calves & hamstrings, atrophied as they were by countless years of confinement at cramped desks within cagelike offices in giant industrial estates or lying prone on our cushioned lazy-boy recliners watching New Zealand’s Next Top Model with a pre-cooked lasagne steaming on the coffee table beside us and a Megameister 1750ml bottle of Jager clutched firmly in our clawed & shaking hands. Via a combination of the Randominator and the ageless Rock/Paper/Scissors, the draws were decided. The first round saw the lanky Rico just barely pipping teh powerful Azza Dolbel for a spot in the finale, Leights and Stu tearing their way through the fabric of time & space, and then an awesome showdown between Ant, Thom and Gav hammering towards the finish line in a last furious burst of pride to an exceptionally close photo finish. The final saw Leighton, Thom and Stu throw down the big times & a wrong-footed Rico bringing up the rear. Gav dominated the mid-card finale, while Dave P was the top dog in the losers round.

The shear explosive physicality of the shotput would further refine the rapidly separating field of Mancathletes. Beneath the sun-baked convexity of the horizon’s expanse the weakening energy of the Mancathletes was beginning to take its toll. Thom, Azza, Leighton and Gavin all hurled the dense metal ball with appropriate piss & vinegar, earning themselves precious points. Azza Dolbel must receive special commendation for the sheer volume of his grunts; bursting through the silence of the stadium like the loud guy at a Birkdale swingers orgy.

The photos of the Long Jump convey a sense of still, encapsulated elegance of form that was quite different from the mad dashes and rough leaps that comprised this event. The true upset of this event was Thom Rowe’s mighty gait propelling him into the air only to have his laconically cocked cap fall from atop his silver-fox hairdo and fall a full metre behind him, its resting point substituted for that of his spade-like hands in a cruel twist of administrative efficiency by event organizer Stu Brooke, and enforced mainly for its hilariousness by the remaining contingent of Mancathletes.

By this point the raw physical enthusiasm that had characterised the earlier events was well on the wane. Brydon Price had blown his groin out in the hurdles and was resorting to the liquid analgesics of warm Speights in an attempt to propel his body through the last leg of the event. Shane Munro was leading a cowardly attempt to have the sprint struck off the event, but he was unable to achieve the groundswell of support required. From tryline to tryline across the rugby field within the stadium, a 100 metre dash. And as they launched from the startline it was clear that dudes were pretty much running with what they were packing, no big flourishes, no last minute bursts of pure adrenaline, just exactly what they had in their legs and nothing extra left to give. And so it broke down across the line in pretty close equivalency to the ultimate stackup of points on the day – Leights, Stu, Thom, Gav and Azza, with Rico just off the pace.

A fine and honorable display of athleticism; for a few short hours we all forgot how old, hungover, unfit and inflexible we all were and our spirits soared along with our bodies through the warm, spring air from the soft dirt to the hot heavens in a victory that spread like syrup through milk in the suspended elysium of amateur sporting mythology.

PHOTOS     www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622560222434/

EVENT TIMES & DISTANCES

	High Jump	Discus	Long Jump	Shot	Hurdles	Sprint
Shane Munro	1.23m	23.8m	3.63m	8.5m	9th	9th
Azza Dolbel	1.28m	27m	3.94m	11.35m	6th	6th
Conrad Blight	1.38m	22.4m	3.85m	9.75m	4th	5th
Brydon Price	1.18m	23.4m	3.7m	8m	7th	10th
Leighton Agnew	1.38m	29.4m	4.83m	10.66m	1st	1st
Dave Parkinson	1.33m	21.4m	3.78m	9.6m	8th	7th
Stuart Brooke	1.38m	33.3m	4.5m	10.2m	3rd	2nd
Anthony Browne	1.13m	0m	3.4m	9.37m	10th	8th
Thomas Rowe	1.44m	27m	3.5m	12.2m	2nd	4th
Gavin Marshall	1.18m	34.4m	4.68m	10.45m	5th	3rd

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE [After Three Events]

Leighton Agnew	10.25
Thomas Rowe	10
Stuart Brooke	8.5
Rod MacFarlane	4
Conrad Blight	3.5
Dave Parkinson	3.25
Gavin Marshall	2.25
Shane Munro	2
Azza Dolbel	1
AJ Sutton	0.25
Brydon Price	0
Dr Kirk Stevens	0
Dr Todd Keenan	0
Duncan Reynolds	0
Gareth Ballard	0
Anthony Browne	0
Jason Gregg	0
Simon Judkins	0
Simon Watson	0
The Wylie	0

Event 2: Manhunt

The 2nd Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “Hunting Humans” – was held in the Riverhead Forest on a Sunday Afternoon and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Gareth Ballard, Gavin Marshall, Shane Munro, Thomas Rowe, Leighton Agnew, Conrad Blight, Stuart Brooke, Azza Dolbel, Brydon Price, AJ Sutton and Dave Parkinson.

As the clouds moved slowly overhead, Riverhead Forest lay blanketed with ancient NZ native bush across the rugged landscape of the Waitakere foothills. Into this majestic environment 11 Mancathletes walked proud and tall, jaws steeled for the chaos ahead, but nothing could truly prepare them for the bizaare ritual that would soon unfold beneath the sheltering stillness of that lush green canopy. A mere 20 minutes later the silence of the forest would be shattered by the crack of a high-powered semi-automatic paintball sniper rifle and the panicked screams of Mancathletes running in pain and confusion.

Here was the lowdown on the terrible showdown – “10 minutes each to rampage through the bush attempting to find and shoot your fellow Mancathletes. Those on the other end of the gun will use all of their wiles and animal instincts to evade the hunter. The hunter with the most kills, or the hunter achieving a full kill roster in the least time will be the victor. Changes of kill period will be anounced with an airhorn and structured as per a Randominated draw. Remember, early brutality will be rewarded in kind so keep it gentlemanly. Unless you’re the last guy, in which case it’s Bronson-style revenge on the cards. The hunted will all be dressed in bright white disposable painters’ coveralls. The hunter is attired in full camouflage.

And so, we were led down a winding path to Field #2, President Juarez had asked for a field that was “Big enough to hide in and small enough to find people in”. Field #2 fitted that description they said…how horribly wrong they were. The Randominator had plucked Gary Ballard from within the swirling foam of its atmospheric noise algorithm generator. And so as Gary tested the heft of the dark weapon, the other Mancathletes jogged into the field of play, running up and down the boundaries demarcated by yellow tape to find the best hiding places, the points of exit and escape. Those running down the left flank were surprised to encounter those running the other way mere seconds into their reconnaissance, they continued to run up in the other direction but suddenly the scenario crystalised in terrible clarity within their reptile brains. The field was tiny, barely the size of a rugby field. There was little cover and almost no opportunity for evasion, Gary would be able to stalk straight up the middle of the field, picking off Mancathletes in all directions as he came. Mancathletes clustered together in small groups, looking around, eyes wide with fear, or ran pointlessly up and down the edges of the field like rabbits on a fence-line. The airhorn blew on the other side of the field, and straight away we heard the staccato crack of the rifle, men were yelling in pain as Gary ran amongst the trees like an excitable schoolboy stomping on ants, his trigger finger a blur as he unleashed a storm of brutality on his defenseless prey. He lept over fallen logs, flying through the air, spraying paintball pellets in all directions with a maniacal grin fixed upon his face; eyes glazed and lifeless as his mind tumbled into a killing fugue, the rush of hysteria flooding his every nerve with adrenaline. Meanwhile the unfortunate victims scrambled through the undergrowth and cowered behind tree stumps as paint-filled projectiles ripped through the air around them. There was no way out, yellow paint exploded across heads, torsos, arms and hands as Mancathletes fell to the ground clutching at themselves and yelling “F*ck, F*ck!!, You got me!!”. In less than 10 minutes Gary had wasted everyone, Mancathletes staggered back to the safe zone, sweating, shaking their heads, holding their sides in pain, Rico’s arm was bleeding where a paintball had smacked open the skin, one of three brutal hits as Gary sprayed the semi-automatic rifle at the transfixed progenitor of this madness.

The situation was clearly untenable, the prey needed a fighting chance at least. A larger field would need to be found or we’d all be going home looking like tenderized steaks.

Field #3 was the one. More than 4 rugby fields large, divided in twain by a high ridge and a stream that ran under a bridge into two culverts. Full of varying terrain; fallen logs, wooden bunkers, blankets of pine needles, tall trees, slippery clay slopes, grasslands, in short – places to run and places to hide. Gary reloaded his rifle and the other 10 gun-shy contestants scattered into the bush. The Mancathletes had learned their lesson well and the lesson was this – “That shit hurts”, for real. Flowing from this realisation was a newfound level of self-preservation that would see them adopt a strange variety of defensive tactics; risking hypothermia, terrible falls, great loneliness and extended periods of discomfort all in an attempt to avoid the hot sting of pain as a little paint-filled membraneous sphere smacked at incredible speed into their bodies.

Being out there in the field, looking desperately for a hiding place, knowing there was someone with a gun, stalking his way through the underbrush. In spite of any kind of plasticity to the event it was a seriously disconcerting affair, dudes were running around the field with a look of sheer unadulterated terror fixed upon their faces. For Rico’s part the first thing he did was stumble hysterically to the furthest point of the field not knowing what the f*ck to do, wherein he was confronted with about half a dozen guys scrambling up and down the slopes with a similar look on their faces. It was here he decided that cover was the name of the game, he retreated in a rapid, dignified manner to the midpoint of the field, found a discrete little gash in the earth and promptly crawled into it like a dying fox, covering himself in twigs and pine needles. This cowardly stratagem was a great success for the first round, Rico lay curled in the foetal position as around him other Mancathletes ran across the uneven ground, crashing through the foliage, unaware of his presence, and more intimidatingly the distinctive rattle of the paintball canister atop the sniper rifle was heard as Gary tromped past his hiding place, letting off bursts off automatic gunfire as he went.

Sadly this plan had a real short expiry date on it. Round 2 ended with Rico getting summarily shot in the ass by Gav and falling on the forest floor clutching at himself in pain, so so much for that strategy. That said, the leaf and branch technique was one that would be used impressively by such able Mancathletes as Brydon Price, AJ Sutton and Dave P over multiple rounds to elude detection, pain and indiginity. The most impressive & innovative technique though had to be attributed to Thomas Rowe, the lanky Marton-born Mancathlete with the distinctive silver-fox coiffure who was rapidly shaping up to be one of the genuine Big Chief hopefuls in 2009. While Mancathletes in the hot seat were systematically combing through the forested grid, their eyes locked upon the floor and mid-ground environment, Thom was busy clambering high atop the pine trees as they flexed and swayed in the cool September breeze. On the one occasion that a hunter managed to spot the big man, he continued to clamber nimbly into the upper regions of the tree as paintballs flew ineffectually around him. As the hunter continued to volley shots around him, bracketing the upper regions with paintballs Thom clambered ever higher, his rangy frame soon reaching dangerous heights. The tree was sagging under his weight and Gravity was watching his progress with hungry eyes. Luckily he was tagged before pride caused him to go any higher, but for the rest of the comp Mancathletes would be searching the skies for the master of the high canopies.

As Mancathletes learnt the value of “stay and hide”, rather than “run around fruitlessly”, it became a serious game to try and flush out these man-sized rabbits. Sometimes it was only the narrowest sliver of white in an otherwise flawlessly convincing patch of pine-needle covered forest floor or grassy verge that would give the game away and allow you the opportunity to unleash a rain of paint on the unsuspecting victim. A slightly askew log, a glimpse of sneaker, a faint movement in a culvert, all would be punishable by a hail of opportunistic gunfire. Stu spent 25 minutes lying in an ice cold stream with torn strips of fern lying across him and courting a mild case of hypothermia in an attempt to elude detection. But that’s the kind of dedication you’re dealing with when you go up against Stu.

The grey Ninja, Thomas Rowe, had a massive inning as the hunter, stalking around the field and stacking up a massive 8 kills. The nearest competitors were fired up veterans Stu Beef and Conrico Juarez with their energetic 6 kills, followed closely by the usually relaxed Fijian Shane Munro, who had managed to achieve a very respectable 5 kills. For each competitor there was not only the unique challenge of trying to flush out increasingly sophisticated prey from their ingenious hiding spots but also, as they scattered & ran there was the slightly twisted sensation of hunting down people for sport.

All in all, a fine day in the woods and a memorable addition to the Mancathlon canon. A game of several halves. With terror, furtiveness and cold blooded killing the clear winners on the day. My one regret, letting Shane off when I had him in my sights.

PHOTOS     http://www.flickr.com/photos/mancathlon/sets/72157622820592762/

TROPHY CABINET

Gareth Ballard	3 Kills
Gavin Marshall	4 Kills
Shane Munro	5 Kills
Thomas Rowe	8 Kills
Leighton Agnew	4 Kills
Conrad Blight	6 Kills
Stuart Brooke	6 Kills
Azza Dolbel	3 Kills
Brydon Price	3 Kills
AJ Sutton	4 Kills
Dave Parkinson	4 Kills

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE [After Two Events]

Thomas Rowe	7
Leighton Agnew	5.25
Stuart Brooke	4.5
Rodney MacFarlane	4
Conrad Blight	3.5
Dave Parkinson	3.25
Shane Munro	2
AJ Sutton	0.25
Gavin Marshall	0.25
Azza Dolbel	0
Brydon Price	0
Dr Kirk Stevens	0
Dr Todd Keenan	0
Duncan Reynolds	0
Gareth Ballard	0
Anthony Browne	0
Jason Gregg	0
Simon Judkins	0
Simon Watson	0
The Wylie	0

Event 1: Casino

The 1st Event of the 2009 Mancathlon – “The Casino” – was held in the Heart of Gamblor on a Saturday Night and was attended by the following Mancathletes:

Azza Dolbel, Conrad Blight, Dave Parkinson, Dr Kirk Stevens, Dr Todd Keenan, Leighton Agnew, Rodney MacFarlane, Stuart Brooke and Thomas Rowe.

The first broad strokes upon the blank canvas of the 2009 Mancathlon were smeared with the garish, lusty hues of greed & avarice, the bright sheen of desire for Mancathlon Points, and ultimately the rich umber tones of disappointment & chagrin. Yes, into that bright and shining temple strode nine competitors, cheeks flush with the promise of early success, nerves alight with novelty, blood coursing with delicious Japanese beer. But that self-same structure would soon spit from its greedy maw the littered debris of four Mancathletes, crying tears of bitterness and regret, mewling like tiny puppies clamouring for the succour of their mother’s eight distended pink nipples. While behind them, brimming with swagger and braggadocio, walking heavy like primitive gods across an untarnished new planet came the big dogs. Their pockets stuffed with sweating and crinkled bank notes, their nostrils flaring with raucous laughter; spittle arcing from their mouths, backs bruised from congratulatory slapping. Their souls crackling with light & electricity as Big Chiefdom beckoned down from the future, all of existence seemed open to them like an oyster’s shell; rich, sensual meat waiting to be scooped by their probing tongues. But now Ladies & Gentlemen, let us hear those tales of woe dredged from the bitter hearts of the unlucky ones…

“I was looking forward to kicking some ass and taking names that Saturday night however when I found out that I couldn’t wear my lucky hat in the casino I became slightly concerned. I loitered in the bar with the other men sizing them up, trying to guess their game plans and strategies until Rico let us off our leashes and I circled the tables ready to make my fortune. I chose roulette, or what I like to refer to as death by 1,000 cuts, or at least death by $2.50 bets. Other men chose blackjack which seemed like death by 5 quick stabs. Unfortunately my ability to add at the table was confounded by the fact that I only posses the idiot protein of the idiot savant gene. I lost a considerable amount of money with my black and red based betting system. I thought the almightily Megahertz processing power of my iPhone was going to unlock the hidden mysteries and patterns in the numbers but to no avail. I finally hit a plateau of $32.50 at the half time, which was most upsetting as I thought I had twice the amount of money at that point mistaking $5 chips for $10 which means that I’m not only stupid but colour blind too. The second half saw me lose the rest of my money on random chance and doing the exact opposite bets as everyone else. I was left at the end of the evening $50 out of pocket, no points to my name and my tail between my legs. Highlight of evening, the ice cream on the way home.” – Dr Todd Keenan (September 2009)

“The sweet smell of desperation in the air. Or was it the stale smell of urine….. hard to tell in the confusion of flashing lights and cacophany of sounds that was the gambling pit. My bid for mancathlon points began at the roulette table. A slow start but the ebb and flow of chips kept me interested for the first hour of the competition. Ten Dollars up at the halfway point where a meeting of the men exchanging strategies and varying success stories had me nervous, I had to attempt a more aggressive approach. The second half started and with a growing confidence I approached the $10 Blackjack tables. Winning streaks mixed with losing streaks and I was $30 up before a change in dealers brought a change in luck. I was definitely not wearing Kmart undies and I was definitely no rainman. Wedged between a card counter and a lady who smelled like a pack of mothballs, there was no escape….my chips were pillaged in a matter of seconds. I stepped away from the table defeated, cursing Gamblor and wishing I had shares in Skycity.” – Dr Kirk Stevens (September 2009)

THE CASH MONIES SPEAKETH

Azza Dolbel	$0.00
Conrad Blight	$1.00
Dave Parkinson	$80.00
Dr Kirk Stevens	$0.00
Dr Todd Keenan	$0.00
Leighton Agnew	$124.00
Rodney MacFarlane	$110.00
Stuart Brooke	$65.00
Thomas Rowe	$70.00

MANCATHLON POINTS TABLE [After One Event]

Leighton Agnew	5
Rodney MacFarlane	4
Dave Parkinson	3
Thomas Rowe	2
Stuart Brooke	1
AJ Sutton	0
Anthony Browne	0
Azza Dolbel	0
Brydon Price	0
Conrad Blight	0
Dr Kirk Stevens	0
Dr Todd Keenan	0
Duncan Reynolds	0
Gareth Ballard	0
Gavin Marshall	0
Jason Gregg	0
Shane Munro	0
Simon Judkins	0
Simon Watson	0
The Wylie	0

Mancathlon 2009: The Madness Unfurls

Somewhere in an infinite series of universes, each rushing, surging and bubbling outwards in a vast tumult of limitless potentiality there exists The Perfect Mancathlon. Is this that universe? Is this that Mancathlon? Only time will tell. But as a record shattering 21 Mancathletes vie with red tooth and claw for the glory of Big Chiefdom one thing is certain, that come mid-November only one man will have put everything his heart contains on the line, and shown the true brains, ballsack and bravado that it takes to be the Ultimate Mancathlete.