Wikipedia

World Memory Championships

The World Memory Championships is an organized competition of memory sports in which competitors memorize as much information as possible within a given period of time.[1] The championship has taken place annually since 1991, with the exception of 1992.[2] It was originated by Tony Buzan and co founded by Tony Buzan and Ray Keene. It continues to be organized by the World Memory Sports Council (WMSC), which was jointly founded by Tony Buzan and Ray Keene. In 2016, due to a dispute between some players and the WMSC, the International Association of Memory (IAM) was launched.[3] From 2017 onward, both organizations have hosted their own world championships.

The cards to be used in the competition

The current WMSC world champion is Huang Jinyao of China.[4] The current IAM world champion is Tenuun Tamir of Mongolia.[5]

Format

edit

The World Championships consist of ten different disciplines, where the competitors have to memorize as much as they can in a period of time:

  1. One hour numbers (23712892....)
  2. 5-minute numbers
  3. Spoken numbers, read out one per second
  4. 30-minute binary digits (011100110001001....)
  5. One hour playing cards (as many decks of cards as possible)
  6. 15-minute random lists of words (house, playing, orphan, encyclopedia....)
  7. 15-minute names and faces
  8. 5-minute historic dates (fictional events and historic years)
  9. 15-minute abstract images (WMSC, black and white randomly generated spots) / 5-minute random images (IAM, concrete images)
  10. Speed cards - Always the last discipline. Memorize the order of one shuffled deck of 52 playing cards as fast as possible.

Venues and winners

edit

World Champions (1991-2016)

# Year Venue Winner
1 1991 London   Dominic O'Brien
2 1993 London   Dominic O'Brien
3 1994 London   Jonathan Hancock
4 1995 London   Dominic O'Brien
5 1996 London   Dominic O'Brien
6 1997 London   Dominic O'Brien
7 1998 London   Andi Bell
8 1999 London   Dominic O'Brien
9 2000 London   Dominic O'Brien
10 2001 London   Dominic O'Brien
11 2002 London   Andi Bell
12 2003 Kuala Lumpur   Andi Bell
13 2004 Manchester   Ben Pridmore
14 2005 Oxford   Clemens Mayer
15 2006 London   Clemens Mayer
16 2007 Bahrain   Gunther Karsten
17 2008 Bahrain   Ben Pridmore
18 2009 London   Ben Pridmore
19 2010 Guangzhou   Wang Feng
20 2011 Guangzhou   Wang Feng
21 2012 London   Johannes Mallow
22 2013 London   Jonas von Essen
23 2014 Hainan   Jonas von Essen
24 2015 Chengdu   Alex Mullen
25 2016* Singapore   Alex Mullen


  • * – The 2016 World Championships was hosted by the WMSC and was the first world championship not recognized by the IAM, who did not host their own world championship that year.[6]
  • § – Athletes generally competed in their respective countries given COVID-19 restrictions, with results combined to determine the world champion.

Records

edit

Up-to-date lists of world and national records can be found on the statistics websites of the IAM[7] and WMSC.[8] The best of them are listed in the following table.

Discipline Record Athlete Event
Hour numbers 4620 digits   Ryu Song I WMSC World Championship 2019
5-minute numbers 642 digits   Wei Qinru Korea Open Memory Championship 2024
Spoken numbers 660 digits   Hu Xueyan WMSC World Championship 2024
30-minute binary digits 7485 digits   Ryu Song I WMSC World Championship 2019
Hour cards 2530 cards   Kim Su Rim WMSC World Championship 2019
Speed cards 12.74 seconds   Shijir-Erdene Bat-Enkh IAM Korea Open 2018
15-minute random words 335 words   Prateek Yadav WMSC World Championship 2019
15-minute names and faces 224 names   Katie Kermode IAM World Championship 2018
5-minute historic dates 154 dates   Prateek Yadav WMSC World Championship 2019
15-minute abstract images (WMSC) 1048 points   Huang Jinyao China Memory Championships 2022
5-minute random images (IAM) 711 points   Enrico Marraffa WMSC World Championship 2024

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ "The World Memory Championships - Memory Training - Accelerated Learning". Archived from the original on 2012-06-17. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
  2. ^ "World Memory Championships | World Memory Statistics". www.world-memory-statistics.com. Archived from the original on 2023-05-19. Retrieved 2016-12-21.
  3. ^ "International Association of Memory | Memory Sports". memory-sports.com. Archived from the original on 2017-12-06. Retrieved 2017-12-06.
  4. ^ "2023 32nd World Memory Championship Global Finals Results Table" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 2024-04-02. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  5. ^ "IAM Statistics". iam-stats.org. Archived from the original on 2024-04-12. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
  6. ^ "World Memory Championships | International Association of Memory Statistics". www.iam-stats.org. Retrieved 2017-12-10.
  7. ^ "World Records | International Association of Memory statistics". iam-stats.org. Archived from the original on 2019-10-24. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  8. ^ "World Records | World Memory Statistics". www.world-memory-statistics.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  9. ^ "Final Results of the 4th Asia Pacific Open Memory Championships – Asia Pacific Memory Sports Council & The World Memory Championships" (in Chinese (China)). Retrieved 2024-05-10.
  10. ^ "Final Results of the 2024 World Memory Championships Vietnam Tournament on Jan.27th-28th – Asia Pacific Memory Sports Council & The World Memory Championships".
  11. ^ "Asia Memory Sports Alliance". www.asia-memory.org. Retrieved 2024-05-10.
edit
Retrieved from "https://en.wiki.x.io/w/index.php?title=World_Memory_Championships&oldid=1264236240"