In its 10th year the World Memory Championships once again proved to be an exciting, closely fought event that saw the greatest trained memories from around the world demonstrate their outstanding abilities. After battling it out over two days the competition saw 3 new world records, a new Junior World Champion, a new Women's World Champion, 2 new Grand Masters of Memory and a breadth and depth of emerging talent from Malaysia never before seen from a single country.

Andi Bell, the 1998 World Champion, threw down the gauntlet to reigning champion Dominic O'Brien when in the opening event he broke the Hour Numbers record by memorising 1820 digits in one hour. It took Dominic a while to recover and it was not until the 4th event that he took the overall lead. He maintained this lead and so retained his title and became the World Memory Champion for the 7th time, a new world record in itself.

In achieving this remarkable feat, Dominic set a new world record for Speed Numbers by memorising 316 digits in 5 minutes. Challenging strongly for a medal position, Gunter Karsten the current German Champion established the most astonishing world record. About 5 years ago, Dr Elizabeth Valentine of London University predicted that the most number of digits that anyone could remember if they heard them at a rate of 1 digit every 2 seconds was 100. In the World Memory Championships this event is called the Spoken Number event. A person with an average IQ of 100 can remember 7 digits in this fashion and someone with a genius IQ can remember 10. With this in mind, what on earth can Gunter Karsten's IQ be as he set a new world record by memorising a 400 digit spoken number, shattering the previous record of 333 held by Andi Bell?!

The Women's World Memory Championship was won by the vivacious Michaela Buchvaldova, the reigning Czech Champion who managed to fight off the challenge of Christiane Stenger of Germany who was defending her title. At 13 however, Christiane, the German Junior Champion, became the new Junior World Champion in a close-fought battle that saw her overcome the strong challenges of the Malaysian youth squad, in particular Wan Jiun Wong who at 14 years old became a new Grand Master of Memory. Robert Carder of Great Britain also became a Grand Master of Memory.

The next 12 months promises a galaxy of World and National Memory Championships including National Championships in Germany, USA, India, Malaysia, Singapore, Korea, Austria, The Czech Republic, Spain and Poland. The first ever British Championships will take place in the Spring of 2001.

Details of these competitions and further information about memory competitions can be obtained from:

Michael Tipper
Director of Competitions
The International Federation of Memory Sports
C/o PO Box 224