Programming Championship VK Cup 2012

Programming contests are becoming more and more popular; To the impressive list of various existing tournaments and championships, one more has recently been added - VK Cup 2012 . In brief his most important features:

• The championship is held jointly by the company VKontakte and the Codeforces project. Registering VKontakte for participation is not required :-)
• The age limit for participants is from 14 to 23 full years at the time of registration (23 years and 11 months - you are welcome). Thus, the target audience - high school students and students.
• but there are no restrictions on the country of residence (conditions are available in Russian and English).
• rather intricate structure of qualifying rounds, concentrated in March (first qualification - March 4) and early April:
  
  • two qualifying rounds, each of which lasts 24 hours and selects the 800 best participants for round 1. Do not be intimidated by the duration of the rounds - you do not need to sit at the computer for 24 hours, this means that you can take on tasks at any time during these 24 hours. Qualifications contain several simple tasks, and usually to complete the next round it is enough to solve part of the problems, there is no penalty for late delivery.
  • three qualifying rounds, held according to the traditional rules of Codeforces;
  • two wildcard rounds that allow people who failed in the first and second qualifying rounds to try again. For a change, wildcards are held by different rules than the main rounds, and this is quite unusual for sports programming tournaments.
• Finally, the final championship for the top 50 participants in the third round will be held in July in St. Petersburg - a trip at the expense of the organizers.

From pleasant things for the participant - solid cash prizes for the top 10 participants of the finals, branded T-shirts for 200 participants of the 3rd round, finally, just interesting tasks (I participate in the preparation of some of them, and vouch for my own :-)).

Detailed schedule of rounds, rules, etc. - in the announcement of the championship . Good luck to the participants!