2020 Crawfish Racing Olympics

The 205th Crawfish races (known in the PAL version as 205th Crayfish World Cup) is an annual underground crustacean racing competition that is a major plot point in The Horse Arc. The race itself was held in San Andreas and was a three wave competition. The race was open to an international audience despite the COVID-19 Pandemic. A total of 8 casualties were in the aftermath. 2 deaths were from crawfish while 6 were from spectators.

Synopsis
An early version of crawfish racing was experimented with dating back to 1805 in China. Records state that racers were mounted on Tasmanian Crawfish and rode down a 200 meter track. This style was ultimtately abandoned as the crawfish were hard for a rider to control and could possibly be deadly. The modern form of Crawfish racing first began in 1815 in Southern Austraila. The large Tasmanian Crawfish were replaced with more optimal western crawfish and the track was reduced to generally 5 meters in most races. The ICRC ran the premiere races in that same year. The races were held to international standard until 1930 when the scene went underground. This was likely due to the large amounts of illegal substances that were consumed recreationally at the events. Most regions regulated the gambling for the races. The 1920 race in Czechoslovakia marked the first race not to receive support from the hosting nation. As a result, the unregulated gambling was deemed illegal by the state. As of 2020, the scene still remains underground.

Races are done on a flat track. Straightaways were used up until 1915. For the 100th anniversary of the races, the ICRC began using right handed loop tracks. The new type of tracks saw 10 years of usage until their collective ban in 1925. In the race, 5 crawfish are raced on a 2 meter track. The race ends when the first crawfish touches the finish line, and subsequent placement is based off of their proximity from the finish line.

Rules
The ruleset for all three divisions uses the standard ruleset.


 * Top 5 racers from each division in their respective continents are selected to race
 * WAVE A is raced in a cumulative score over the course of a day
 * A certain amount of points are gained for each placement (500 > 1st, 300 > 2nd, 200 > 3rd, 100 > 4th, 50 > 5th)
 * The winner goes to the racer with the highest score after three races
 * WAVES B and C maintain the revised scoring that was used from 2015 to 2019
 * Races are done in a best of 1 format to save time
 * The race ends when the first crawfish touches the finish line. Placement is calculated based off of their distance from the finish line

Regulation
In order to qualify for any competition, the crawfish must reach the following requirements


 * Any crawfish must stay within the weight regulation of 25 to 30 grams
 * Crawfish cannot exceed the length limit of 8 cm (from Antennules to Telson)
 * Crawfish qualifying for WAVE A must be over 14 months of age
 * All crawfish must be up to date on vaccinations for Aphanomyces astaci (crawfish plague)
 * Numbers used to identify the crawfish need to be placed behind the carapace
 * All numbers must be written in white. Accent colors must be dark colors (no yellow/white on white)

Competitors
Wave A was composed of the top placing competitors from last year. Most of these competitors have a race history of 27 or more years. Wave B was an undercard fight. It was an open division to any competitors who had less than 25 years of racing. Pookie and Drone were the two exceptions, as they qualified for wave A but chose to race in the undercard fight using new crawfish.

^Played remotely

* Won the 205th race for their respective division Wave C was another division of undercard fights. Outside of basic regulations, anything goes. Many consider this to be the "ratchet" side event.

Results
* Disqualified because crawfish was rendered dead at the end of the race

Trivia

 * This is the first race to feature a competitor from Chile and South America as a whole
 * This is the second annual race to feature the Cheats Enabled division
 * The 205th annual race marks the 20th time the race was hosted in North America
 * It also marks the 3rd hosting from San Andreas. The last time was for the 2002 races
 * This is the first race not to feature a competitor from Africa
 * The race marks a return to the standard ruleset, which was not used since the 2014 races in Denmark
 * This also marks the third year in a row that allows competitors under the age of 17 compete. Children were banned from racing in 2013 after the Coal Mine Incident of 2012.
 * This is the 10th year in a row in which there were less than 10 casualties