Talossan Quiz Olympiad Team?

[xpb]

Talossan Quiz Olympiad Team

I will be attending the 2nd Quiz Olympiad in Krakow, Poland in November (see quizolympiad.com).  Will there be any other Talossans available?

The idea is to gain public awareness of the Kingdom by issuing various proclamations to be accepted by the International Quizzing Association [IQA] (of which I am a former board member and well connected to those currently serving) as a recognized entity within the National Teams Quiz.  I don't recall that the Kingdom has had a team officially recognized in any international competition - does anyone recall any?

The benefit to the IQA would be to get attention via a special interest news item, something that could get traction on the web in places like fark.com or others that harvest unusual news.  The key would be recognition as a nation - there is always the aspirational competition where people can name teams as they like but that would not be a referencing a squad as the national representative.  It could be pitched as a one-off (or two off, as discussed later on) such that they could implement this one time but withhold such recognition in the future, or carefully vet it.  This might have more traction if there were an odd number of recognized nations present, as they typically will let all the national entities play at least one face to face game after the initial qualifier written quiz.

While there are individual and pairs events, the Nations Teams are squads of up to 4.  Should this idea progress, and there were not enough existing Talossans available, there would need to be sufficient time (likely 3 weeks prior) such that those among the quizzing community that were not already on a national team that in turn were also interested in becoming an active citizen in Talossa would be recruited.  This would not have the purpose of creating additiona "paper" citizens only for the purpose of the competition, but to find those who would truly become participants in the realm.

A backup plan if the Nations path were blocked would be to participate in the Aspirational competition, and to also determine if there were another group of people attending that were affiliated with another micronation or other non-national subdivision.  Then there would be at least one Talossa vs something match after the initial seeding.

Thoughts?  Interest by other Talossans either who are quizzers, or those located in Europe who could attend 45 days from now?

A sweetener - I will be willing to provide the registration (€425.00) for up to 3 other Talossans who would handle their own travel and lodging should some semblance of recogntion of Talossa take place within the event.

XPB

[Ian Plätschisch]

I must say that I looked into this trip more seriously than I probably should have.

It could be technically possible for me to attend (depending on how my time off accrues at my job). That being said, it would be very difficult given that it is less than two months from now and I've never travelled independently abroad before (if this were in the US I'd be much more willing and able to go).

How soon could you find out if your idea could really happen?

[xpb]

Alas the original plan was to have this event in Memphis TN in November 2020 it was relocated because of several large Trivia events planned in the US that year, only one of which wound up taking place (Geek Bowl in March a few days before everything shut down - a friend recaps the event here https://www.superverbose.com/2020/03/16/geek-bowl-xiv-question-recap/) and then bumped out a year when things went the way they did.

I looked into things further and based on the merged FIFA and IOC rules they use it might be problematic to wedge into the Nations event but certainly no problem with the Aspirational - and perhaps get some "recognition" for Talossa.  I will contact the powers that be about the PR possibilities, especially if there happen to be others who have experience or history in another micronation of any type -- there then could be a head to head match in tandem with other " Nations" events.  I am assuming everyone who might want to take part already has a passport and/or is in the common Schengen area within the EU as the lag time might be too much for new docs.  I managed to find my flights with a pile of frequent flyer miles.

I have been chatting today with an Australian living in Edmonton who is going to make an effort to be there and an interesting club team could come together for that event.