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It was a rough-and-tumble, hard-fought battles last week, but, ultimately, there were two clear winners: Daily News Gatecrasher Ben Widdicombe and W/Women's Wear Daily Eye-ster Emily Holt are New York's hottest gossip writers.

Both pulled out surprise victories, each snatching the title from a competitor who at first seemed to hold an unassailable lead.

On the girl's side, Rush & Molloy reporter Jo Piazza moved out from front from the beginning, and she stayed there through Thursday and Friday. But by Saturday afternoon, Holt had pulled ahead, leaving Piazza in the dust and staying in the top position till polls closed this morning.

Widdicombe accomplished an even more impressive feat in the boys' competition, topping his News colleague Hudson Morgan, who built up a seemingly insurmountable lead in the fist day of voting and took this contest sufficiently seriously that we're sure he's now crying into his keyboard. Late in the day Friday, Widdicombe pulled ahead of Morgan, and he's stayed there since. (We'd make a joke here about Ben obviously preferring to come from behind, but we're better than that.)

Congratulations, Ben and Emily. (And congratulations, too, to Times Boldfacer Campbell Robertson, who we're thrilled to see didn't come in last and we now promise we'll never include in another Hotties poll.) As always, first round's on us.

Full results after the jump. And we'll be back this afternoon with this week's contest.

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