The event, being run for the second time (under a new name) by Leeuwarden town and students from Stenden University of Applied Sciences, was set up with the aim of strengthening relations between the three universities. Van Hall Larenstein, NHL and Stenden battled for victory in a ‘Minute-to-win-contest’. ‘Last year it was a sort of hexathlon’, says co-organizer Juanita Poelsma. ‘This year we opted for the official minute-to-win games to make it even more exciting.’
In several rounds, the participants were tested on (sometimes rather bizarre) skills through a number of official Minute-to-win games. All lasting one minute, these games varied from ‘Cookie Monster’ (in which contestants had to get a cookie into their mouths from the top of their heads), to ‘Sumorace'(tipping water into a bath dressed in a large and clumsy ‘sumo wrestler suit’ and, as a grand finale, an exciting wheelbarrow race, which ended in a neck-and-neck finish.
The prize was a dining voucher, but the most important thing was to defend the honour of the college. The VHL teams did not win any prizes, however. The staff-student team came closest but had to make do with fourth place. They left the other (all-student) teams far behind them. The champion was Stenden, whose gung-ho team just managed to beat last year’s champion, NHL, and go away with the prestigious cup and the dining voucher.