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Reception | Room 1 | Room 2 | Room 3 | Room 4 | Final Round | Slide Show | |
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Play-by-Play | Photos | Video | Problem Analysis
tomek poses for the crowd
tomek comes out on top
by Matt Murphy, TopCoder Staff
Friday, December 5, 2003
Floats like a butterfly, codes in C. The crowd could not stop roaring as tomek, the new TopCoder Open Champion, bounced up to receive his $50,000 check.
The sociable student from Poland made his first appearance in TopCoder competitions just 3 months before the start of the tournament. His friends back home did not think he would be able to come to America and win this kind of money. "I told them I was going to win," tomek said with a grin. He hopes that his success will encourage other coders from Poland to compete in TopCoder competitions.
It was a close match. Yarin held the lead all the way up until the final system test was run on the 1000-point problem. "I was pretty afraid of Yarin," tomek admitted, "I was looking at his score all the time."
As one would expect, winning $50,000 put tomek in a pretty good mood. His comical responses to the interviewers' questions could barely be heard over the crowd's boisterous laughter. When asked what he thought about winning, tomek chuckled and replied, "That's what I wanted."