Algorithm : You are the coach of a cycling team with 25 members and need to determine the fastest, second-fastest, and third-fastest cyclists for selection to the Olympic team.

The other variants of this problem asks about the racing of horses instead of cyclists.

Solution :

Let number of matches played till now be matchCount = 0;

Lets us name the players as Ai, Bi, Ci, Di and Ei where 1<= i <=5

GROUP 1 GROUP 2 GROUP 3 GROUP 4 GROUP 5
A1 A2 A3 A4 A5
B1 B2 B3 B4 B5
C1 C2 C3 C4 C5
D1 D2 D3 D4 D5
E1 E2 E3 E4 E5

Now in 5 different matches we get the 5 winners from each of the groups. Without the loss of generality we can assume that winners are A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5 ( Bi and Ci for 1<=i <= 5 at 2nd and 3rd position).

matchCount = 5

Now lets have a race among A1, A2, A3, A4 and A5.

matchCount = 5+1 = 6

Now without any loss of generality we can assume A1 to be the winner and A2 & A3 be at second and third position respectively. So if A1 is the winner then closest to A1 in race would be B1, C1, A2 and A3. Having another race will reveal the players at 2nd and 3rd position.

machCount = 6+1 = 7

So in 7 matches we can identify the players at 2nd and 3rd position