I think I get why this wasn't an EP story (the science wasn't important and it was terribly violent), but I think it could be leaning on the fence if not sitting on it all together.
This was a cool idea for a story, but I was hoping to get something a little deeper out of it. It presented an idea for a contest, but centered so tightly around this competition and his dealing with the past, that it didn't show the rest of the world so I could get a context for everything that was going on or how the guy might be feeling.
I think this story could have been ‘shown’ more and ‘told’ less.