2. In the final stage of a professional bowling tournament, the top five players compete as follows: First, the fifth-place player competes with the fourth-place player, the loser gets fifth place, the winner competes with the third-place player; the loser gets third place, the winner competes with the first-place player, the loser gets second place, the winner gets first place. How many different possible orders of finish are there?
(39th American High School Mathematics Examination)
(Due to determining the top five rankings, 4 races were held, and each race has two possible outcomes. By the multiplication principle, there are $2^{4}=16$ possible ranking orders for the top five winners.)