Eleventh Van Cliburn Competition

[minnielala2]

How exciting was the 11th Cliburn Competition in 2001 compared to the 12th competition of 2005? I was only 10 when the latter happened, and back then I obsessively watched the documentary "Playing On the Edge" about 1000000 times probably. Last year, I became even more Cliburn-obsessed and read every single blog entry and article about the pianists/competition. But now that I have basically covered all that I can possibly know/analyze about the 12th VC, I am curious as to how it matches up with the 11th (there was no blog, etc. back then).

As I remember, the finalists for the 11th VC were Stanislav Ioudenitch, Olga Kern, Maxim Philippov, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Xiaohan Wang, and Oleksiy Koltakov.

Watching the documentary a million times as an eleven-year-old:
1.  I liked Olga best (partially bc of her personality).
2. I wondered if Koltakov had anything besides virtuosity, as well as why he lets his teacher, um, teach like that
3. I thought Ioudenitch was superb and also deserved the gold medal, but had a boring personality
4. I loved Maxim Philippov (he reminded me of my piano teacher), and wondered why he didn't get gold as well.

Does anyone remember details as to how and what they actually played, as well as the level of competition? Please discuss any other opinions as well!