Solution: The Olympics

Written by Jenna Himawan

This is a minimeta-matching puzzle. There are 40 answers and 5 minimetas; each answer is used exactly once, and every minimeta takes 8 answers. The solutions to each minimeta are outlined below.

Blue Ring - Biathlon

Biathlon competitors need to be able to complete two events, although they overlap a little.

This minimeta revolves around words that can be made of two other words. However, one letter is shared between the words (it is the last letter of the first word and first letter of the second).

The answers that feed into the minimeta start with letters A-H, and are presented in order as follows:

ARCANE

BARELY

CONDONES

DIVESTING

ERASURE

FIBRED

GRANDMASTER

HEROES

The word splits are as follows:

ARC + CANE = ARCANE

BAR + RELY = BARELY

CONDO + ONES = CONDONES

DIVES + STING = DIVESTING

ERAS + SURE = ERASURE

FIB + BRED = FIBRED

GRANDMA + ASTER = GRANDMASTER

HER + ROES = HEROES

By reading the points of overlap, we receive the subpuzzle answer CROSSBAR.

Yellow Ring - Skeleton

Skeleton competitors need to know anatomy.

These subpuzzle answers contain substrings which are one letter off from bones in the human body.

The answers that feed into the minimeta are:

ANIMALLEGS

ANTIBIEBER

HOUSEWIFESURVEY

INJUSTICE

KOWDIARPALACE

NEWCHAPELBISHOP

OLDROMANBIBLE

VOTERNUMBERS

We can now find the bones:

ANIMALLE(G→U)S

ANTIBI(E→A)BER

HOUSEWIFE(S→M)URVEY

IN(J→C)USTICE

KOWD(I→C)ARPALACE

NEWCHAPEL(B→V)ISHOP

OLDROMAN(B→D)IBLE

V(O→S)TERNUMBERS

To sort these answers, we use the position of the bone inside of the answer:

IN(J→C)USTICE

V(O→S)TERNUMBERS

ANTIBI(E→A)BER

ANIMALLE(G→U)S

KOWD(I→C)ARPALACE

OLDROMAN(B→D)IBLE

NEWCHAPEL(B→V)ISHOP

HOUSEWIFE(S→M)URVEY

By reading the left side of the arrows, we receive the subpuzzle answer JOEGIBBS.

Black Ring - Boxing

Boxing competitors need to correctly place their cross punches.

The answers feeding this subpuzzle all have exactly 1 X and are all 8 letters long:

EMPTYBOX

EXPERTLY

FULLXRAY

IMAXFILM

REARAXLE

SIXSIDED

SMALLAXE

XMENHERO

The answers can be sorted by the position of the X, which forms a diagonal line across an 8x8 box:

XMENHERO

EXPERTLY

SIXSIDED

IMAXFILM

FULLXRAY

REARAXLE

SMALLAXE

EMPTYBOX

Now, we can "complete the X" by reading the secondary diagonal, which yields the subpuzzle answer OLDFLAME.

Green Ring - Weightlifting

Weightlifting competitors need to find their weights.

In this subpuzzle, we look for units of weight that are contained inside the answers. The answers used, and the units of weight they contain, are as follows:

ANNOUNCEMENT

EZRAPOUND

GRAMPUS

INGRAINED

MELODRAMA

PISTON

SANDSTONE

SQUINTALITTLE

Trying to use the diagram from the puzzle when the answers are in this order will not work. For example, the second row indicates that we need to take a letter 2 positions after the weight. However, POUND occurs at the end of the word.

By sorting these in order of weight, we can highlight the letters that we wish to extract:

INGRAINED

GRAMPUS

MELODRAMA

ANNOUNCEMENT

EZRAPOUND

SANDSTONE

SQUINTALITTLE

PISTON

These highlighted letters spell the subpuzzle answer NUMERALS.

Red Ring - Steeplechase

Steeplechase competitors need to travel to steeples in many countries.

These answers are all semantically related to famous religious structures:

Answer	Which building	Location
DEVIL FOOTPRINT	Frauenkirche	Munich, Germany
HOLY WISDOM	Hagia Sophia	Istanbul, Turkey
HUNCHBACK	Notre Dame	Paris, France
MICHELANGELO	Sistine Chapel	Vatican City
RED SQUARE	Saint Basil’s Cathedral	Moscow, Russia
SIDE WINGS	Hallgrímskirkja	Reykjavik, Iceland
UNFINISHED	Sagrada Família	Barcelona, Spain
UNKNOWN WARRIOR	Westminster Abbey	London, England

We can now order these according to the map in the puzzle:

Answer	Which building	Location
RED SQUARE	Saint Basil’s Cathedral	Moscow, Russia
DEVIL FOOTPRINT	Frauenkirche	Munich, Germany
UNKNOWN WARRIOR	Westminster Abbey	London, England
HUNCHBACK	Notre Dame	Paris, France
MICHELANGELO	Sistine Chapel	Vatican City
HOLY WISDOM	Hagia Sophia	Istanbul, Turkey
UNFINISHED	Sagrada Família	Barcelona, Spain
SIDE WINGS	Hallgrímskirkja	Reykjavik, Iceland

Lastly, we may notice that the icons on the map representing these buildings have different numbers of steeples. We can use these as indices into the corresponding answers:

Answer	# Steeples	Extracted Letter
RED SQUARE	1	R
DEVIL FOOTPRINT	2	E
UNKNOWN WARRIOR	1	U
HUNCHBACK	3	N
MICHELANGELO	2	I
HOLY WISDOM	2	O
UNFINISHED	2	N
SIDE WINGS	1	S

This gives us the subpuzzle answer REUNIONS.

Bringing it all together

In order to extract a final answer from these subpuzzles, we use the pattern of the Olympic rings. We are told which answer corresponds to which ring, so we just need to write the letters on the rings in such a way that the same letter occurs at points of overlap.

There is one unique way (including if you allow answers to be written counterclockwise) to do so:

Olympic rings image. All answers are written clockwise on their corresponding rings. CROSSBAR starts at the west position; JOE GIBBS starts at the north position; OLD FLAME starts at the west position; NUMERALS starts at the northeast position; REUNIONS starts at the southeast position.

Reading the letters of intersection in "reading order" (top row first, left to right), we get the cluephrase SOLN BEAU, and our final answer, BEAU!

Author’s Notes

Initially, this puzzle included a Golf minimeta, which used the NATO phonetic alphabet. We decided this was uninteresting and replaced it.

Biathlon was initially called dressage, and the flavortext clued at "an article of clothing and an herb" (DRESS + SAGE = DRES(S)AGE). After some discussion, we decided on the current version of the flavortext.

Solution: The Olympics Answer: BEAU