APBO

Apple Pie Bake Off Association

www.PaulAlwaysWins.com

Judging the Family Apple Pie Competition since 2015

2024: Olympic Gold!

Event: Apple Pie-Athalon

Winner: Paul

Awarded: 2 Gold Medals for, "Baking a pie so nice, it won gold twice!"

Silver and Bronze Medals

Winner: Amber

Awarded: Silver

Winner: Mom

Awarded: Silver

Winner: Lauri

Awarded: Bronze

Winner: Bell

Awarded: Bronze

The Pathway to Gold

This journey's beginning can be traced back to Christmas of 1972. Santa brought some great gifts that year, but it wasn't the tool set or bulldozer that truly caught Paul's attention. A rolling pin, pie plate, and apple peeler would go on to be the most used toys of the season! (Here he is seen looking in the new tool set hoping to find a paring knife and apple corer.)

Paul experimented with blueberry and raspberry pies, but apple was where he found his passion. He was soon winning awards at Brookfield Elementary School for creating deserts far beyond his years. His first grade teacher, Mrs. Achilles, is noted to have said, "While other kids in class were eating paste and sometimes their own boogers, Paul was perfecting cinnamon and nutmeg ratios!"

As Paul continued his quest to create a perfect apple pie recipe, his two sisters were always game to sample his latest creations.

Here we see Lauri (left) and Tracy (right) with faces covered in apple pie goodness! After they devoured a pie in record time, Paul placed out another which was also quickly consumed right after this picture was taken!

For years people have wondered why Paul was smiling in his official US Army basic training photo. (For the record, he was the only one to smile in all of Charlie Company!)

An uncropped version of this picture has recently been found, and it contains an interesting detail missing for all these years - Paul had just won the Battalion Bake Off with his special MacAttackIntosh (MAI) A1 Apple Pie! The MAI A2 would go on to win the 39th Infantry Division title!

In the years that followed, Paul lost focus on the pie he loved, and began dabbling in lesser-loved fillings such as strawberry rhubarb and gooseberry. His dramatic fall from greatness happened at a 1992 incident known only as "The Fourth Place Gooseberry Debacle", following which Paul fell into a slump and refused to bake pies for some twenty-three years...

In 2015 Paul came across that rolling pin he received from Santa back in 1972, and something awakened within him. He decided to return to his roots, and made a simple apple pie just like the ones he made for his little sisters so many years before. Paul would go on to enter his pies in local competitions, and over the years received a vast array of awards, leading finally to Olympic gold!

An Olympic Homage

Following Paul's unprecedented winning of twin gold medals for his incredible 10.1 overall score, congratulations began to pour in from other 2024 Paris Olympic stars.

Perhaps the most notable of these accolades came from the Australian break dancing phenom, Rachael Gunn, known on the mean streets of Sydney as "RayGun". In the exhibition round, RayGun performed an unconventional break dance that featured two apple pies (representing the double gold, of course). Through a series of gravity-defying moves, she conveyed the story of Paul's epic rise to Olympic glory. There was not a dry eye in the house!

© MMXXIIV by the Apple Pie Bake Off Association. All judgements are final, regardless of any feeble attempts at title thievery that may take place. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. No, it's not fair. Now turn that frown upside down and go eat some delicious apple pie created by an Olympic Gold winner!