“Hong Kong Memory Championships (HKMC) 2022” was held in South Tuen Mun Government Secondary School on 10th & 11th September. This is the highest-level memory competition in Hong Kong solely recognized by the “World Memory Sports Council (WMSC)”. In addition, it was very grateful to have our Global Chief Arbiter in Mind Mapping and Speed Reading, Prince Marek Kasperski, to deliver the opening speech via video to the Hong Kong contestants.
Owing to the epidemic, memory competitions throughout the world have been suspended one after another. In the past, the memory championships in Hong Kong were mostly attended by the foreign athletes. The number of Hong Kong participants was often less than 10%. In order to popularize memory learning in Hong Kong and enable Hong Kong students to obtain the most effective memory methods, Ms. Eva Chan, the Hong Kong President of the WMSC, has been visiting various primary and secondary schools, providing memory lectures and trainings, and encouraging the students to take part in the HKMC. It boosted the competition with less than 10 Hong Kong people in the previous years, to nowadays, dozens of Hong Kong students in HKMC 2022.
According to the “National Standard” of WMSC, the 10-discipline event included:
1) Random Words
2) Binary Numbers
3) Names & Faces
4) Random Numbers
5) Speed Numbers
6) Historic & Future Dates
7) 10-min Cards
8) Abstract Images
9) Spoken Numbers
10) Speed Cards
After the 2-day basis competition, “Diocesan Boys’ School” became the big winner of both “Individual Division” and “Inter-School Division”! For the Individual Junior Division, Chan Yan Ting from Diocesan Boys’ School won 4 medals and the Overall Champion with a total of 1,305 points. The runner-up was Wong Ching Hei, Geoffrey with 6 medals and a total score of 1,280. Also, Geoffrey successfully broke the Hong Kong best record in “Names & Faces” discipline. The entire audiences cheered with enthusiastic applause for his incredible memory! The second runner-up was Linus Choy with 5 medals and a total of 1,256 points. For the Individual Adult group, Chau Yu Kwan from Ho Fung College got the Champion and won medals in all 10 events!
In the aspect of Inter-School Division, “Diocesan Boys’ School” won the Champion unsurprisingly with its brilliant result of more than 40 prizes. With multiple gold medals won by student Chan Hoi Yan, it enabled “Helen Liang Memorial Secondary School (Shatin)” to achieve 2nd Place in the Inter-School section. Moreover, the “South Tuen Mun Government Secondary School”, the home team, enjoyed its home advantage to rank 3rd Place among the schools. It had to give credit to its students, “Yeung Cheuk Hei”, “Li Hiu Ki” and “Ng Pei Yi”, who won numerous individual medals throughout the 10 disciplines.
The MERIT awards were presented to “Ho Fung College”, “ESF Island School” and “Hong Kong Sea School” respectively in recognition of the great efforts from their students.
The Hong Kong President of the WMSC, Ms. Eva Chan, proclaimed that, “Apart from the National Standard of WMSC, this is the first time we score the Hong Kong Memory Championships under the Inter-School system, which appeals to various primary and secondary schools’ students to participate enthusiastically. Although all the contestants are being trained in a very short period, most of them have shown their best abilities and talent during the game. WMSC looks forward to holding this brain-stimulating competition again next year, so as to nurture more Hong Kong young people to take part in the World Memory Championships and also, to achieve the honour of International Grandmaster of Memory!”