You're reading: Animals compete to be best oracle of Euro 2012 games

Neither the German elephant and cow, nor Ukraine’s own pig and polecat can match the predicting talent of Paul the octopus. In fact, even multiple bookmakers around the world cannot predict the results of Euro 2012 matches with the same accuracy as Paul, the deceased octopus who was the chief oracle of World Cup 2010.

Impressively, the mollusk predicted all eight results correctly. Ukraine’s duo of hog Funtik and polecat Fred have struggled to repeat his achievement.

Fred managed to predict the correct outcomes of seven matches, including Ukraine’s victory on June 11. He also turned out to be correct about the championship’s very first match between Poland and Greece on June 8, which ended with a draw.

Fred was born in Kharkiv zoo three years ago, and got his non-Ukrainian sounding name from the word “ferret,” a similar mammal, according to Oleksiy Hryhoriev, director of the zoo.

“We have high hopes for him,” Hryhoriyev said in an interview with a Kharkiv newspaper.

Until June 11, Funtik was the lead oracle with 66-percent accuracy. He misread the fortune for his native team, and failed to predict any draws, but is still scoring better than William Hill, the world’s biggest bookmaker, whose accuracy stands at 40 percent.

“He is just the best. He is calm and cool-headed,” says Ivan Shpakovsky, his caretaker and guard.

Funtik was brought to Kyiv on June 8 and with much fanfare he was placed in the fan zone on Khreschatyk. He has had so much attention from the fans that he often just turns his head away from the crowd in a pitiful gesture.

Funtik is just three years old, but weighs 386 kilos. He had a reputation even before arriving to Kyiv for accurate predictions of results of local matches in his home town in Zhytomyr Oblast.

The actual method of making predictions is the same for all competing animal oracles: they are offered two plates of their favorite food, with flags of both contenders attached. The one the animal picks is supposed to become the winner.If the oracle refuses to touch either of them, that means a draw.

Kyiv Post staff writer Anastasia Forina can be reached at [email protected]