NEWS UPDATE 18.00 Local Time
WANG FENG from China wins the 20th World Memory Championships for the second time with 8477 points and three new world records.
Eight World Records Broken this year.
5 min Historic Dates: Ni Ziqiang China (Kids Category) 42 memorised
15 min Abstract Images: Konstantin Skudler (Kids category) 200 memorised
Hour Cards: Wang Diandian China (Junior Category) 728 memorised
5 min Speed Numbers: Wang Feng China (adult) 500 memorised
Hour Numbers: Liu Su China (adult) 2640 memorised
Hour Numbers: Wang Feng China (adult) 2660 memorised
Spoken Number: Wang Feng China (adult) 300 spoken numbers memorised
15min Abstract Images: Konstantin Scudler (Kid Category) 200 images
5min Historic Dates: Ni Ziqiang (Kids Category) 42 dates
60 min Cards: Wang Diandian (Junior Category) 728 cards
In the Spoken Number discipline, Wang Feng recalled perfectly all 200 digits in the first trial. In the second trial he caused speculation by leaving the competition hall well before the end of recall time, giving the impression that he might have given up on this attempt. However, waves of excitement reverberated around the arbiters room when it was realised that he had achieved a perfect score of 300, smashing the previous record of 240 held by Germany's Simon Reinhard.
In the final discipline, Speed Cards, shockwaves were sent through the competition hall when Lui Hongzhi achieved a Junior Record of 34.28 seconds. This meant that at the end of the first trial he was leading the competition in that discipline.
Wang Feng narrowly missed out on a new world record when he attempted an amazing time of 20.97 seconds in his first trial but transposed two cards towards the end. Eventually he won the Gold Medal in Speed Cards with a comfortable time of 33.68 seconds on his second trial after viewing the deck twice.
NEWS RELEASE 12.27 Local Time Guangzhou
The 20th World Memory Championships is now underway.
Follow the event on Twitter #WMC
There can be few sports that have attracted such a dedicated following that competitors would willingly travel half way around the world at their own expense, putting themselves at considerable inconvenience and discomfort and overcoming many logistical challenges just to compete, but the Mind Sport of Memory is no ordinary sport. Of the 120 competitors from 22 countries registered this year, only eleven were beaten by the odds, and had not arrived in time for the first discipline, although frantic messages kept coming in from far flung airports to assure us they were still on their way.
Countries taking part include
Since its inception in 1991 when joint founders Tony Buzan and Raymond Keene OBE held the very first World Memory Championships in London, people of all ages, all backgrounds and all professions have amazed themselves by discovering the truly infinite capacity of their minds, which this unique sport helps to unlock.
Incredibly, when improvements in physical sports over the past two decades can be measured in fractions of a second, by contrast, achievement in mental sports has dramatically increased year by year, and there is no end in sight to any limit of the brain to memorise and recall.
So it was that the Mount River Resort Hotel in
Reigning World Memory Champion Wang Feng is favourite to retain his title and has been practicing six hours a day for the past 100 days. An amazing commitment to the sport. Wang is student of land resource management at
This year over 25% of the competitors were ladies and girls, a far higher proportion than in the finals of any other comparable mental sport.
Nine out of ten of the top seeds came from
The age spread of competitors was from 9 years old to 74 years old, unusually wide and proving that there is no correlation between age and mental skills.
One day one of the event there are three disciplines, 1) Names and Faces
2) Binary
Tomorrow on the second day of the competition, the disciplines will be 4) Abstract Images
5a) Speed Number Trial 1
Schedule
Wednesday 7th Day One of Competition.
1) Names and Faces
2) Binary
3) Hour Number
4) Abstract Images
5a) Speed Number Trial 1
6) Dates
5b) Speed Number Trial 2
7) Hour Cards
8) Words
9) Spoken Number (200, 300, 400 seconds)
10) Speed Cards (2 trials)
To find out more about the 10 Memory Disciplines that are used in the competition click here
To download test papers from previous competitions, click here
Current World Records;
Name and Faces 15 minute Simon Reinhard 164 WMC 2009
Record reset due to new rules – strict internationalisation of names and faces
Abstract Images 15 mins Johannes Mallow 385 German 2011
Binary Numbers 30 mins Ben Pridmore 4140 WMC 2007
Dates 5 mins Johannes Mallow 132 Swedish 2011
One hour Cards 60min Ben Pridmore 1456 (28 decks) WMC 2010
Spoken Number 100,200,400 Simon Reinhard 240 German 2010
One hour Number 60min Wang Feng 2279 WMC 2010
Speed Number 5min Wang Feng 500 WMC 2011
Random Words 15min Simon Reinhard 300 German 2010
Speed Cards One pack Simon Reinhard 21.19sec German 2011
Interesting Facts from 2010
13,000 Abstract images
125,000 Binary numbers,
90,000 numbers that you remembered in the hour,
25,000 Speed numbers
3,500 Historical and future dates
60,000 individual playing cards
9,000 random words
6,000 spoken numbers
11,000 speed cards
And matched 6,000 names with the face
That is over 450,000 items – and those are just the ones you got right!
But to be sure, we checked and double checked so in all we reviewed over 1,000,000 individual pieces of data.
