The Lincoln Log

Within the sixth round of Health Idol, competitors took a visual spatial test and a stork balance test. Competitors played “Where’s Bin Laden?” a game similar to “Where’s Waldo?” for the visual spatial test; they held a tree yoga pose or the stork balance test.

Senior Greg Jew managed to find Bin Laden in the three different scenes in only one minute. Junior Crystal Chang came close with one and a half minutes.

Junior Steven Flynn won the stork balance challenge by holding the pose for 40 seconds. Although he was eliminated in the previous round where they were tested on their grade point averages, he was allowed to compete in this round because he was getting his grades corrected. However, in the end Flynn was eliminated from this round because the corrections couldn’t be made on time. By removing his scores from the challenges, the point curve for the competition changed. This change led to the end of the competition for English teacher Bob Owens.

During the seventh round, the remaining competitors took a memory and sit up test. In the memory challenge, each competitor is asked to stare for thirty seconds and memorize the 36 items. At the end of that time frame, they were asked to list out all the items they recalled seeing.

English teacher Sara Falls amazingly listed out 20 of the 36 items, winning the memory challenge. Her method to this challenge was not only listing the items she recalled, but saying them out loud.

Jew sought out to beat the sit-up record of 571 sit-ups, set by Owens last year. Since Owens had just been eliminated before his strongest challenge, he could no longer defend his title. Jew beat the record by 31 sit-ups, with a grand total of 602 sit-ups. With less than half this amount, freshman Sandy Lee took second in this challenge with 250 sit-ups.

Although Lee excelled in the sit-up challenge, her overall score was not high enough to continue in the competition. Similar to Owens, she was eliminated before she had the chance to redeem herself in the mile run, which we are lead to believe is her strongest challenge. Science teacher Andy Talarowski was eliminated as well, leaving no more male teachers in the competition.

The eighth round proved to be the most important to all the remaining competitors, because it determined who would form the top four in the competition. They were first put in front of two judges that were past competitors who had been eliminated, Lee and Flynn. The competitors were asked “Why is the Health Idol competition important to our community?” Based on the answers given by the competitors, the judges voted for who they believed answered the questions best and should become the next Health Idol. Falls won the challenge followed by senior Winfield Ye and Wellness Center Coordinator Jen Kenny-Baum.

The second portion of the eighth round was the mile run. Since the standards based on age and sex applied, junior Rebecca Choi at 7:48 took first place, followed by Kenny -Baum at 8:34, and Jew at 6:53. If it weren’t for the standards, Jew would have taken the challenge followed by Ye at 7:13. Although Falls did not do as well as the other competitors in this round, with a time of 9:02, she improved her time from last year by nearly a minute.

At the end of the round, Chang ended on a higher note by making it to the second to last round as the last person who had not competed in previous years.

“It’s a good feeling to have made it this far, but next year I’ll be ready to win,” Chang said.

By a point one difference in overall score, Ye was allowed to continue in the competition while Falls was eliminated along with Chang. Despite making it in to the top four, Ye was not close enough to become 2007’s Health Idol, nor could he take second place. Ye pushed through several challenges, but his overall score was too far off from the leaders of the competition to catch up. Jew and Kenny-Baum were both leading the competition and had already been set to be in the top four regardless of the outcome of the eighth round. Choi remained in third place.

In the ninth round the competitors tested their coordination by jumping rope and their health knowledge by taking a health quiz. Choi took the coordination award with 231 jumps. Jew won the second portion of the round by answering six out of 10 questions correctly.

In the end, Ye took fourth place and Choi took third place. Kenny-Baum and Jew were left to fight for the title of Health Idol in the final challenge. The two competitors, who were both hidden players known as Patient Zeroes in last year’s competition did not last quite as long as they did last year. This year however, they dominated the entire competition and proved to be a threat to everyone else.

In order to determine the winner, Kenny-Baum and Jew both wrapped a hollow tube around each other. A marble was dropped at one end, and they were to move their body in order to get the ball out on the other end. Jew proved to be more agile with a time of three minutes and 12 seconds, which was 20 seconds faster then Kenny- Baum.

Jew won the title of Health Idol for the year 2007. Along with bragging rights, he received a $100 giftcard of his choice. Kenny-Baum was not disappointed for taking second, and walked away with a $50 gift card. Choi received a game which will be used in next year’s competition.

“It [was] hard for me to be competitive with the other students. I want everyone to do their best, but I have a hard time negotiating that someone has to be the winner and someone has to be the loser,” Kenny-Baum said after the competition ended.