Sasuke 19 guessing game

[zoran]

Imagine you are back in 2007 and decide to try to guess the results of the noteworthy confirmed competitors in Sasuke 19 (a lot of the randos are unknown according to Sasukepedia). Noteworthy competitors include the all stars, semi all stars (Kong, Shinji, Koji, Nagasaki), the ANC winners, Paul Terek, Washimi and Takamasa, Hiromichi, maybe Morimoto and Okuyama (and other successful athletes) if they were confirmed back then (or you found out they were) etc etc. If you want to do all the known competitors from sasukepedia, be my guest.

Let's say the available information you have prior to the tournament is the introduction of the HPA and return of the sextuple steps and warped wall, maybe you could guess the wall, jumping spider and flying chute have been buffed as well as a time limit reduction. For stage 2 only brief images have been seen but they are enough to guess the wall lift is back and net bridge has been replaced by the skywalk but the difficulty is hard to gauge. Same for stage 3, the new obstacles are sorta figured  out as well as the modification to the shin but difficult to gauge their impact. The final is still shrouded in mystery as it is now.

What are your guesses as a fan in 2007?

[dakohosu]

It's hard to say what the possible spoilers for obstacles etc. would be as I wasn't into Sasuke at that time (I was like 10, lol). Discord didn't exist back then, nor did Ninja communities (SMF was started in 2008 around 21 time). I'll assume that they leaked things like the obstacles etc. in the Navi but I've not seen the Navi for 19, but it would be quite hard to work out whether obstacles have been buffed or not, as well as the lack of expectation given 18's already pretty dismal results so you wouldn't expect them to make existing obstacles harder as well as the new additions. Time limit would be hard to predict as well, especially as the 15 second reduction in and of itself was pretty unexpected in combo with the harder obstacles

Presuming I know the following:
- New obstacles on Stages 1 through 3
- POSSIBLE buffs to existing obstacles but nothing set in stone.
- Competitor list but I'm only aware of veterans and not rookies like Hirata or Okuyama

I don't know the following:
- Whether existing obstacles have been buffed for sure
- Time limit
- Nuances of specific obstacles like the Sending Climber being impossible.

I'd go with the following:

#76 - Shinji Kobayashi - anywhere from Jumping Spider through Flying Chute, if not then Shin-Cliffhanger
#77 - Takamasa Nagasaki - Half-Pipe Attack or Salmon Ladder
#79 - Koji Yamada - Soritatsu Kabe (had no experience with the new course)
#81 - Shingo Yamamoto - Flying Chute or Salmon Ladder (he struggled on the pre-19 All-Star special at Muscle Park)
#82 - Bunpei Shiratori - Shin-Cliffhanger (18 seemed like a freak accident and he was incredibly consistent until then)
#84 - Kenji Takahashi - Shin-Cliffhanger (had three Stage 3 attempts up until then)
#86 - Yuji Washimi - Half-Pipe Attack or Salmon Ladder
#87 - Colin Bell - no idea, either late Stage 1 fail or Salmon Ladder
#?? - Takayuki Kawashima - Flying Chute
#91 - Katsumi Yamada - Soritatsu Kabe
#95 - Tomoyuki - anywhere from Jumping Spider through Flying Chute
#96 - Toshihiro Takeda - Shin-Cliffhanger
#97 - Shunsuke Nagasaki - Shin-Cliffhanger
#98 - Paul Terek - Jumping Spider due to his size and weight
#99 - Hiromichi Sato - Half-Pipe Attack or Flying Chute
#100 - Makoto Nagano - Deep Stage 3 run