mind games

MIND GAMES:
An Olympics-Themed Puzzle Pentathlon
By Mike Shenk, Robert Leighton, and Amy Goldstein
This set of five puzzles is for Olympic-caliber solvers and was created specially for WSJ+ members.
Solving each puzzle will give you an answer that is a five-letter word. Once you have all five
answers, string them together in puzzle order (without spaces) to form a password. That password
will unlock the final puzzle. Solve the final puzzle to get the answer to this question:
What’s the best method of getting to the Olympics?
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PUZZLE 1
HEARTS OF GOLD
Each row and column in this puzzle contains two or three consecutive answers, clued in order. However, in five places,
you’ll need to leave a blank square (never within a Row or Column answer). When you’ve filled in the rest of the grid,
you can put a letter in each of these blank squares to make another word (of between four and eight letters) in its Row.
These five words all come from the same category. The five added letters will spell your answer word.
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ROWS
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Sinister spirit
Domains
Bakery beckoner
Timekeeper in a garden
Emphatic affirmative at the
Barcelona Olympics (2 wds.)
Football kick
Boxer LaMotta
Preliminary race
Made certain
Long stories
Finishing order?
Cul-de-___
Luau instrument
Shift places, in a volleyball
game
Con man’s mark
Area of expertise
Wedding exchange (2 wds.)
The Cayenne and the Boxster,
for example
9 1972 Winter Olympics host
Engrave with acid
10 Elvis’s Mississippi
birthplace
Chevy muscle car
11 “We ___ the World”
Secretarial position?
Transplant, as a plant
12 Become apparent
Muscle-bone connectors
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COLUMNS
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3
4
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Some Usain Bolt races
Scene from a summit
Pennsylvania’s
northernmost county
Made square
Certain something
Art made with tiles
Bronze ingredient
Forget to mention
Removes from the team
Salon service accompanying
a mani
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Afternoon refresher
Some slalom equipment
(2 wds.)
Soft leather
Sullen
Usain Bolt, for one
Is way cool
Tolkien’s protectors of the
forest
Mama’s boys
“Entourage” agent
Tweak
Hockey players, informally
Teller of tales
Individually
Finish line for a race
Constructive person
1994 Brandon Lee movie
(2 wds.)
Bob or luge
Golfers’ first strokes (2 wds.)
PUZZLE 2
PARADE OF NATIONS
When completely filled in, each row in the grid will spell the name of a country whose flag is shown below. First fill the
answer to each clue into its numbered jigsaw piece, starting where the arrow indicates. Then fit the pieces into the grid.
None of the pieces will be rotated, and none will overlap each other. (When you determine where a piece belongs, you
may find it useful to mark its outline.) Once all the pieces are properly assembled, five spaces will remain unfilled. Put a
single letter into each of those spaces to complete the country names. Those letters, read from top to bottom, will spell
your five-letter answer word.
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1 “Gemo in un punto” from Vivaldi’s
“L’Olimpiade,” e.g.
2 Person accompanying a team to ensure
good behavior
3 Take on
4 Hypnotic state
5 Suffered
6 Heron with white plumage
7 Give strength to, physically or mentally
8 Otherworldly glows
9 Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe, for one
10 Waterman wares
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PUZZLE 3
OLYMPIC RINGS
The answer to each clue here has seven letters. For each Outer Rings answer, enter the first letter in the correspondingly
numbered shaded space and the second letter in the space connecting to it through the gap in the heavy black hexagon.
Proceed either clockwise or counterclockwise around the remaining spaces surrounding the shaded space; the direction
of each answer is for you to determine. The Inner Rings answers are entered in the same fashion, but the clues are
unnumbered, so you will need to determine their answers’ locations. When you’re done, read the letters in the Olympic
rings to find your five-letter answer word.
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OUTER RINGS
1956 Marilyn Monroe film (2 wds.)
Starbucks server
They’re aimed at in Olympic shooting events
Pays for a hand of cards (2 wds.)
Fender products
Sailing competition
Like the setting of Rio’s beach volleyball events
Wrongful act
Legendary escape artist
Contacted by shortwave
Changed, as text
Critic’s writings
Defeat in the 100-meter backstroke, say
4 in the afternoon, to Brits
Released con
Sugar pill
Spectacular failure
Proton’s place
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10
INNER RINGS

Cancún’s peninsula
Card game played with a double deck
Class member
Get the short end of the stick (2 wds.)
Grove fruits
Gymnastic performer
Hillary’s conquest
Katy Perry’s “___ Dream”
Like Riga-born Igors Vihrovs, who won gymnastics gold
at the 2000 Olympics
Like some 1984 Los Angeles Olympics boycotters
Maker of instant millionaires
Nascar driver’s team (2 wds.)
No-go, in a horse race
Nonconformist
Olympic sport that takes a bow
Punch at a tapas bar
River from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario
Stockings
Tennis competitions
PUZZLE 4
TRACK MEET
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Answers in this grid form two completely overlapping tracks, both of which travel clockwise and fill
all of the spaces. Each answer to a Numbered clue should be entered starting in its corresponding
numbered space. The answer to the first Unnumbered clue starts somewhere in the answer to
Numbered clue 1 and is immediately followed by the answer to the second Unnumbered clue.
The remaining Unnumbered answers continue in the same fashion around the grid, completely
overlapping the Numbered answers.
When all the answers have been filled in, look at the five areas in the grid indicated by italicized
Unnumbered clues. (When two consecutive clues are in italics, their answers should be considered
as a single string.) Within each of those five long strings is a shorter five-letter string that, when
you delete the middle letter, forms a four-letter synonym for “run fast.” The deleted letters, read
clockwise from the start, will spell your five-letter answer.
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NUMBERED
Compete in a race
Transparent
Major neck artery
Outspoken NYC minister and
activist (2 wds.)
Visitor to a talk show
Backside, to a Brit
Equipment used in Olympic
shooting events
Say repeatedly
Walk leisurely
Storage area under the eaves
City on Puget Sound
Speediness
Everything, including the bad stuff
(3 wds.)
Like many a person from North
Africa or the Middle East
Reservoir for a home heating
system (2 wds.)
Full of passion
Jay Z or Ice T
Maria Lenk Aquatics ___
(Rio diving venue)
Buffoons
Eggy brunch choice
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UNNUMBERED

Dad’s brother
Jockey Eddie
Jay Z streaming music service
Feature of a person with a caustic
wit (2 wds.)
Headliner
Font style like Times New Roman
Bond’s CIA pal Felix
Group that included B. A. Baracus
and Hannibal Smith (Hyph.)
Make a sound like a lamb
Small, hard mint brand (2 wds.)
Nebraska’s largest city
Homemaking guru Martha
Shoe worn to the first Olympics
“60 Minutes” correspondent
Logan
Heat until bubbling
Stein’s cousin
Tempt into wrongdoing
Interest rate word
Nixon crony Bebe
Many, but not most
It often begins with “Dear”
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PUZZLE 5
SPORTS CAST
A
W
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A K
G
G
Fill in the name of a Summer Olympic sport or
event in each row. The colored paths connecting
spaces indicate letters that carry from one set of
spaces to the next. (You can work from the top and
the bottom.) When you’ve filled in all the words,
the letters in the square spaces will reveal your
five-letter answer word.

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