Quick competition question about B.O.S.

In looking at some previous standings for a competition - which i had no involvement in, a question arises:

Scenario - in a French/Belgian competition spanning 3 categories (French & Belgian Ales, Sour Beers and Belgian Strong Ales), a beer took second in its category, but won Best Of Show.

How's that possible? I thought i had a handle on the idea of competition scoring until i saw this. I suppose if i were one of the brewers who nabbed a first in any of the 3 categories i'd be a little miffed.

Well, does best of show get judged against the style, or is it just how "good" the beer is? Maybe the BOS was not the best example of any of those styles, but the judges preferred the beer itself. Sounds wacky though.

I find it hard to believe that a beer that beat it out in it's category did not win the BOS, but follow me here...

A particular beer may not meet the style guidelines as closely as another beer, but the BOS may not have to follow style guidelines, so even though it scored lower in that particular style, it may have simply tasted awesum anyway!

That is one scenario where a second place beer can wind up winning BOS. Some contests use the BOS as a way out of having to meet particular guidelines.

EDIT: Coaster beat me.

Maybe i'm just unfamiliar with the BoS concept or the styles, but i get where you guys are going with it. It actually happened for the past TWO years:

2008
2007

In decent sized competitions only the top beer in a flight goes to BOS round. If there are only 40 beers or so and 3-5 total flights then its not a big deal to have the top 3 from each flight go to BOS round.

Competitions vary I think, but this is how we did mini BOS at AWOG:

Let's say there are two halves of a split flight, A and B. They each send up their three best (A1, etc):

A1 vs B1. B1 wins, A1 goes up against B's second:

A1 vs B2. A1 wins, B2 goes up against A's second:

A2 vs B2. B2 wins.

So it's possible for A to sweep the category, ie A1 A2 A3 even though B1 could have scored higher.

However, if you mean BOS overall, then as far as I know only beers which took gold should be entered.