LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “We Have a Winner”
Prompt: This week’s contest answer is one of the 15 solvers who have ever won the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament (ACPT).
Answer: ERIK AGARD, found by 378 solvers, of which 322 were solo solves

Which ACPT champ was highlighted in last week’s puzzle? Let’s take a look at our theme entries:

17-A: [U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. of the 1970s] = ANDREW YOUNG. Still with us at 92 years…well, young.

20-A: [Home to the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library (the ampersand seems a bit casual but that’s how they do it)] = YALE UNIVERSITY. Love to have a transcript of the meeting where they gave a thumbs-up to the ampersand. It’s not a Crate & Barrel, folks!

34-A: [Sworn to tell the truth] = UNDER OATH

55-A: [You won’t believe your eyes when you see this!] = OPTICAL ILLUSION

60-A: [Not theoretical] = IN EXISTENCE

What’s going on here? These are all two-word entries whose initials are all vowels. Like so:

A.Y.
Y.U.
U.O.
O.I.
I.E.

That can’t be a coincidence; a close look reveals a reverse-alphabetical vowel loop, the chain being A-Y-Y-U-U-O-O-I-I-E. We’d need an E.A. entry to complete the pattern, which leads us to 2018 champion ERIK AGARD, found by just 378 solvers. I think that low Week 1 number reflects more on the fact that lots of solvers were at that very tournament last weekend rather than the difficulty of the puzzle.

And congratulations to Paolo Pasco for winning the tournament this year, and also to David Plotkin for coming in second and Will Nediger for taking third.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:
This week’s contest answer is a hyphenated 10-letter adjective I hope you’d apply to this crossword.