The 1020 Champion Tournament was a single-elimination combat magic tournament held in Iryna at the direction of Governor Reiner. Its purpose was to determine the most qualified mage in the city to be appointed as the successor to Champion Kesti Kor'onen. The winner of the tournament was Madeleine, a previously-unknown raft city resident, who was 15 years old at the time.
Kesti Kor'onen, who had served as Champion since 1012, was removed from her position by Governor Reiner on Day 28 of Month 1, 1020.[1] The previous night, she was involved in an incident where she allegedly attacked Reiner and evaded an attempted arrest by Mansion Guards. Reiner argued that these actions were sufficiently deplorable to warrant immediate removal from the position of Champion. He decreed that instead of simply nominating a replacement, as had become the custom in modern times, he would return to the tradition of holding a tournament to objectively determine the city's most qualified individual. However, given his personal involvement in the circumstances surrounding Kesti's removal, Reiner felt it would be a conflict of interest for him to directly participate in the tournament. He instead nominated Selwyn, a diplomat from Evridiki who had recently arrived in Iryna, as an "impartial judge" to officiate the tournament.[2] With Selwyn as the primary officiant, two Governor's Mansion officials were selected to create a three-person judging panel. Sign-ups began a week before the opening ceremony.
The Champion Tournament was broken up into 10 rounds. In each round, half of the participants were eliminated, although some also dropped out for personal reasons or simply failed to show up to their appointed match time. All matches took place inside the Highpark amphitheater, enclosed by a special magical barrier to protect attendees in the stands from all spells cast within the theater itself. Victory was decided by knock-out; if neither participant was unconscious after 5 minutes, the fight was declared a draw, and both participants advanced to the following round.
Nearly 2,000 Irynians participated in the Champion Tournament, and many of them had some level of prior renown. However, a selection of particularly notable participants are listed below:
After the tournament's conclusion, evidence emerged that called into question its legitimacy. Two key participants were absent from the final: Selwyn, the Evridiki official selected by Reiner to officiate the tournament, and Lucine, one of the three participants who had qualified to advance to the final. Lucine's whereabouts were not known until she gave an account of her experiences to The Inquirer several weeks later. Lucine explained that she had gone into hiding after being attacked by a person posing as Selwyn, who had attempted to bribe her into throwing the tournament in Madeleine's favor. Whether any of the tournament matches were actually tampered with could not be proven, and Lucine made it clear that she was happy for Madeleine to take the title of Champion. Selwyn's whereabouts remain unknown, although two other judges were present at the final to call the match in Madeleine's favor, and there was no reason to dispute their verdict.[4]