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 current WMSC world champion is Enkhjargal Uuriintsolmon of Mongolia.[4] The current IAM world champion is Enrico Marraffa of Italy.[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:
- One-hour numbers (23712892....)
- 5-minute numbers
- Spoken numbers, read out one per second
- 30-minute binary digits (011100110001001....)
- One-hour playing cards (as many decks of cards as possible)
- 15-minute random lists of words (house, playing, orphan, encyclopedia....)
- 15-minute names and faces
- 5-minute historic dates (fictional events and historic years)
- 15-minute abstract images (WMSC, black and white randomly generated spots) / 5-minute random images (IAM, concrete images)
- 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 |
WMSC world champions (2017-present)[edit]WMSC (World Memory Sports Council)
|
IAM world champions (2017-present)
[edit]International Association of Memory
| # | Year | Venue | Winner | Combined Rankings | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2017 | Jakarta | Alex Mullen | Champion | |||
| 2 | 2018 | Vienna | Johannes Mallow | Non-Champion | |||
| 3 | 2019 | Zhuhai | Andrea Muzii | Non-Champion | |||
| - | 2020 | Competition Not Held | |||||
| - | 2021 | Competition Not Held | |||||
| - | 2022 | Competition Not Held | |||||
| 4 | 2023 | Mumbai | Tenuun Tamir | Non-Champion | |||
| 5 | 2024 | Lund | Enrico Marraffa | Non-Champion | |||
| 6 | 2025 | Mumbai | Vishvaa Rajakumar | Non-Champion | |||
* - 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]
- SS - 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 | IMO 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 | WMSC China Memory Championships 2022 |
| 5-minute random images (IAM) | 775 points | Enrico Marraffa | IAM French Open Memory Championship 2025 |
Championships by country
[edit]| Country | Titles[1] |
|---|---|
| England | 15 |
| Germany | 5 |
| Mongolia | 5 |
| China | 4 |
| USA | 3 |
| Italy | 2 |
| Sweden | 2 |
| North Korea | 1 |
| Pakistan | 1 |
See also
[edit]- World championship
- Eidetic memory
- Grand Master of Memory
- List of world championships in mind sports
- Memory sport
- Method of loci
- Mnemonist
- Mnemonic major system
- Extreme Memory Tournament
- World Junior Memory Championships
- World Mind Sports Games
- Mind Sports Olympiad
- Mind sport
- Mind Sports Organisation
- International Association of Memory
- Mental Calculation World Cup
- Mental calculation
- Mental abacus
References
[edit]- ^ "The World Memory Championships - Memory Training - Accelerated Learning". Archived from the original on 2012-06-17. Retrieved 2007-01-26.
- ^ "World Memory Championships | World Memory Statistics". www.world-memory-statistics.com. Archived from the original on 2023-05-19. Retrieved 2016-12-21.
- ^ "International Association of Memory | Memory Sports". memory-sports.com. Archived from the original on 2017-12-06. Retrieved 2017-12-06.
- ^ "WMC 2024". The World Memory Championships. Retrieved 2025-01-09.
- ^ "IAM Statistics". iam-stats.org. Archived from the original on 2024-04-12. Retrieved 2024-04-02.
- ^ "World Memory Championships | International Association of Memory Statistics". www.iam-stats.org. Retrieved 2017-12-10.[dead link]
- ^ "World Records | International Association of Memory statistics". iam-stats.org. Archived from the original on 2019-10-24. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
- ^ "World Records | World Memory Statistics". www.world-memory-statistics.co.uk. Archived from the original on 2018-12-20. Retrieved 2018-12-19.
External links
[edit]- World Memory Championships website
- WMSC Statistics website
- IAM website
- IAM Statistics website
- Memoriad - World Memory Olympics website
- List of Memory Competitions
- RNG v1.0 Random Number Generator for training Working Memory