Selection to the Asian Regional Contest of ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest

On Friday, July 6, 2007, the Japan domestic preliminaries for the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest was held and 2 teams from The University of Aizu were selected to the Asian regionals.
The contest is a global-scale programming contest for university/college students and is held for the purposes of advancing their skills in programming and providing a venue for international exchange among them. Each team is composed of 3 students and 1 coach, and competes in the domestic contest via the internet. 40 teams are then selected for participation in the Asian regionals held in November.
8 teams from the University participated in the contest. "graceful final NUNOZO, lately" finished in 6th place and "HIT" in 26th place out of a total of 256 teams, which has qualified them for the Asian regionals. (Please refer to results of the Domestic Contest.)
Both teams have practiced on a continuing basis for this year's contest since last year. Coach Watanobe has commented "We will continue to practice towards our goals for the Asian regionals, which are making the world finals for NUNOZO and reception of a regional award for HIT"
Here are some comments from the team contestants which show their enthusiasm: "I will do my best to perform well against teams from other respectable universities.", "We are hoping to receive a higher ranking, compared to our domestic contest.", "Taking advantage of the result from the domestic contest, I would like to go to the world finals with results which I can be proud of."
The contestants include a member of a team which won the All Japan High School Computing Contest "PC Koshien" hosted by the University and a student enrolled in the University by its early admission entrance system.

graceful final NUNOZO, lately
Mr. Yutaka Watanobe (Coach)
Mr. Hiroshi Saito (Contestant)
Mr. Takayuki Shibata (Contestant)
Mr. Nobuyuki Wachi (Contestant)
HIT
Mr. Yutaka Watanobe (Coach)
Mr. Jun Igari (Contestant)
Mr. Takashi Tayama (Contestant
Mr. Yuki Hirano (Contestant)

participants
(From the left)Mr. Tayama and Mr. Igari from HIT, Coach Watanobe (Center), Mr. Shibata and Mr. Wachi from graceful final NUNOZO, lately