Olympic Format Division

An Olympic format division is a draw system consisting of 4 separate Single elimination bracket. All competitors start in the main bracket, called the gold draw. Depending on the round a player loses in, they drop into a consolation bracket to continue competing for a final division standing.

In the Olympic Format Division, players drop into consolation brackets. after losing in a specific round based on the number of matches in that round. In the case where a bracket has more byes than matches to play in the first round, losers of the first and second round drop to the same consolation bracket. Otherwise losers of each round drop to a specific spot in one of the 3 consolation brackets.

Using the example draw shown here, there are more matches in the first round than byes, so teams winning in the first round who lose their match in the second round drop to the Blue draw and continue playing for 5th – 8th place.

Teams losing in the first round of the gold draw drop into a separate red bracket to compete for 9th – 12th place.

Finally, teams losing their first 2 matches drop first into to the red draw, then drop into a separate white draw after their second loss to compete for 13th – 16th place.

Advantages:

Final standing can be to be determined all the way out to 16th place A great format for national or international championships where a large number of final standings need to be determine.

Requires less matches than the Triple Knockout tournament brackets because the byes are counted as a win which means that match doesn’t have to be played.

Guarantees players without a bye 3 matches, and players with a bye get 2 guaranteed games.

Great way to start with a large group of competitors and have them end up separated into 4 different brackets to compete against other teams closer to their skill level.

Disadvantages:

The Olympic Format Division requires many extra consolation matches to be scheduled so a lot of extra scheduling time is needed.

Once a team loses, they can only stay in their new dropdown division, or drop into another division after a subsequent loss, but can never get back into the gold draw to win the championship.