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Will Rice, Brown bike strongly at 2000 races
Water balloons as vital as beer and bikes
sonja gee/thresher
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Wiess College junior Sarah Pitre prepares to throw a water balloon from the Wiess truck during the parade.
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Competition isn't the word.
The water balloon fight is war.
College boundaries are clearly drawn. Those in the same color shirts as yours are your friends. Those wearing other colors - they are the enemy.
The parade began at noon, but balloons began flying as soon as the trucks lined up.
The assaults were fierce, from people darting between the trucks to launch individual balloons at particular targets to the battery of balloons that rained down from one truck to the next.
And then, after the trucks inched their way along the Inner Loop from Founder's Court to the stadium, students streamed off the trucks heading for the stands, the track, the pizza and the beer.
The sun shone warmly and brightly this year, burning painted letters into students' arms, faces - HFH, JIBA, SRC - and drying clothes drenched from the water balloon fight before.
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This year there was no Will Rice sweep, but there wasn't a flop either. Will Rice won both the men's and the alumni race, and Brown College took the women's.
With its victory in the men's race, Will Rice extended its winning streak to four. Since Beer-Bike began in 1957 as the "Inter-College Bicycle Race," Will Rice has won the race 17 times, more than any other college.
Brown College came in second in the men's race, and Jones College came in third, duplicating the top three results from last year. However, this year the men's race was marked by controversy, as the Lovett men crossed the finish line third, but were disqualified when Lovett students ran onto the track before the race was officially finished.
vianna davila/thresher
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Will Rice didn't sweep, but they did swim. Will Rice College sophomores Scott Crosthwait and Jesse Dickerman leap into President Gillis' pool.
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Sid Richardson notably continued its tradition of creative disqualifications. This year, the team rolled a student in a giant pink tire out on the track. The men's team from Sid has been disqualified every year since 1994. In the 1994 race, their last biker was dressed as a cow riding on the back of a tandem bike.
sonja gee/thresher
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Sid Richardson College junior Jada Sanders bikes in the women's race. The Sid women have finished second in the past two Beer-Bikes.
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The Brown women have won the race nine times since women began racing in 1974 - the most of any college. The Sid Richardson College women's team finished second for the second year in a row, while Will Rice managed to squirm into a third-place finish after a disappointing start.
sonja gee/thresher
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Brown College freshmen Mike Stanton and Erik Swanson push freshman Liz Mahanna off to a start in the women's race. The women's team from Brown placed first, giving them the most ever wins in the women's race - nine.
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Brown, Sid and Will Rice have had the only women's teams jockeying for the top three spots since 1994, when the Jones team came in third.
Will Rice has won the alumni race for the past five years, bringing the total number of wins in that race to 14, the most by any college since alumni started racing in 1982. They were aided this year by the participation of many recent graduates who were part of last year's Will Rice sweep.
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