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THE World Memory Championships which saw 64 of the world’s brightest ‘brainiacs’ fight it out for three days in Bahrain proved such a success that the kingdom has been selected to hold the contest again next year.
“The 2008 World Memory Championships will be held in Bahrain,” revealed Tony Buzan, the ‘Godfather’ of memory activities and mind-mapping, and founder of the event.
“China, Singapore, Germany, Australia Egypt and America also put in bids, but we have been totally overwhelmed with the professionalism, enthusiasm, participation, creativity, care and concern of the Bahraini patrons, sponsors, teams and people in general.”
Mr Buzan also pointed out that Bahrain is the only nation containing the word ‘brain,’ with all the letters in the right order in its name.
The return of the championships means that there is plenty of time for the island’s memory supermen and women to get into training for next year.
The championships, held at the Crowne Plaza Conference Centre, Manama, marked the first time the event was held in the Middle East.
Three grueling days of tests saw the contestants – including Bahrain’s own Karan Beri – battle through the ultimate mental challenge … a ‘deca-mentathalon.’
Ten different disciplines, including memorising up to 4,000 numbers in one hour, 27 shuffled decks of cards, hundreds of historical dates and matching countless faces and name, stretched contestants to the limit.
The championship and $10,000 (BD3,780) prize money was won by German social worker Dr Gunther Karston, a firm favourite who narrowly beat British accountant Ben Pridmore to the title.
“Ben holds the record for memorising a single deck of shuffled cards in 24.28 seconds,” said chief arbiter, Phil Chambers.
Other hopefuls included Brazilian contestant Alberto Dell’Isola Rezeider Medeiros, a 27-year-old math’s teacher.
“I used to have the worst memory in the world,” he said. “I always used to forget things, but I started training in 2004 and it transformed me. I got quite famous in Brazil because I am the only person doing this in Latin America. It changed my life because my greatest weakness is now my greatest strength.”
The trick for many is to associate numbers with images. Teenage sensation Mia Koerkemeyer, from Germany, associates each number with an object. The 17-year-old said: “For example my number eight is a roller-coaster because of the shape of the digit.”
Dominic O’Brien, an eight-time world memory champion, who was banned by 13 Las Vegas casinos after outwitting blackjack dealers for a TV show, said that improving your memory can improve almost every aspect of your life.
“Memory defines our characters … without it we’d be lost. It gives you confidence and we now know you can slow down the aging process by training the brain. The best exercise of all is using your memory.
“This event will hopefully inspire people in the Middle East to take up the sport.”
Prof Dr Bernd J Hoefer, CEO of innovation company Intelnacom, who was responsible for bringing the championships to Bahrain said: “Bahrain is the right place to hold this competition. It’s heavily investing in education, its very open and competition driven. We want to convince people not only to invest in real estate but in the intellectual property here.”
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By -RdS-
editor@gulfweekly.com
