New Short Story Challenge

This is the first I've heard of this one, so I can't vouch for it, but it looks interesting, so I think I'll give it a shot.  From their website:

The 7th Annual Short Story Challenge is a creative writing competition open to writers around the world.  There are 3 rounds of competition.  In the 1st Round (February 22-March 2, 2013), writers are placed randomly in heats and are assigned a genre, subject, and character assignment (see examples of past assignments here).  Writers have 8 days to write an original story no longer than 2,500 words.  The judges choose a top 5 in each heat to advance to the 2nd Round (April 11-14) where writers receive new assignments, only this time they have just 3 days to write a 2,000 word (maximum) short story.  Judges choose a top 25 from the 2nd Round to advance to the 3rd and final round of the competition where writers are challenged to write a 1,500 word (maximum) story in just 24 hours (May 17-18).  A panel of judges review the final round stories and overall winners are selected!

The competition is sponsored by NYC Midnight, an organization that describes itself as "dedicated to discovering and promoting a new wave of talented storytellers". 

Deadline for entry is February 21.