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. The next World Memory Championship will take place in Vashi, Maharashtra, India for the first time. It will take place at 24 to 26 November[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 Tenuun Tamir of Mongolia.[4] The current IAM world champion is Andrea Muzii of Italy.[5]

Format

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

World Champions (1991-2016)

#YearVenueWinner
11991LondonEngland Dominic O'Brien
21993LondonEngland Dominic O'Brien
31994LondonEngland Jonathan Hancock
41995LondonEngland Dominic O'Brien
51996LondonEngland Dominic O'Brien
61997LondonEngland Dominic O'Brien
71998LondonEngland Andi Bell
81999LondonEngland Dominic O'Brien
92000LondonEngland Dominic O'Brien
102001LondonEngland Dominic O'Brien
112002LondonEngland Andi Bell
122003Kuala LumpurEngland Andi Bell
132004ManchesterEngland Ben Pridmore
142005OxfordGermany Clemens Mayer
152006LondonGermany Clemens Mayer
162007BahrainGermany Gunther Karsten
172008BahrainEngland Ben Pridmore
182009LondonEngland Ben Pridmore
192010GuangzhouChina Wang Feng
202011GuangzhouChina Wang Feng
212012LondonGermany Johannes Mallow
222013LondonSweden Jonas von Essen
232014HainanSweden Jonas von Essen
242015ChengduUnited States Alex Mullen
252016*SingaporeUnited States 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. Only athletes from countries with a national council were able to participate (the vast minority).

Records

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.

DisciplineRecordAthleteEvent
Hour numbers4620 digitsNorth Korea Ryu Song IWMSC World Championship 2019
5-minute numbers630 digitsItaly Andrea MuziiIAM MemoryXL German Championship 2021
Spoken numbers547 digitsNorth Korea Ryu Song IWMSC World Championship 2019
30-minute binary digits7485 digitsNorth Korea Ryu Song IWMSC World Championship 2019
Hour cards2530 cardsNorth Korea Kim Su RimWMSC World Championship 2019
Speed cards12.74 secondsMongolia Shijir-Erdene Bat-EnkhIAM Korea Open 2018
15-minute random words335 wordsIndia Prateek YadavWMSC World Championship 2019
15-minute names and faces224 namesEngland Katie KermodeIAM World Championship 2018
5-minute historic dates154 datesIndia Prateek YadavWMSC World Championship 2019
15-minute abstract images (WMSC)1048 pointsChina Huang JinyaoChina Memory Championships 2022
5-minute random images (IAM)547 pointsFrance Yolan CohenIAM Swedish Open Championship 2021

See also

References
  1. The World Memory Championships - Memory Training - Accelerated Learning
  2. "World Memory Championships | World Memory Statistics". www.world-memory-statistics.com. Retrieved 2016-12-21.
  3. "International Association of Memory | Memory Sports". memory-sports.com. Retrieved 2017-12-06.
  4. "Final result of 30th World Memory Championships | World Memory Championships". www.worldmemorychampionships.com/. Retrieved 2022-03-29.
  5. "World Memory Championships 2019 | International Association of Memory Statistics". www.iam-stats.org. Retrieved 2019-12-17.
  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. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
  8. "World Records | World Memory Statistics". www.world-memory-statistics.co.uk. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
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