The Junior Mental Calculation World Championship returned to Bielefeld on the 30th September–2nd October, as organized by Caroline Merkel since 2008 [official JMCWC website]. 70 competitors from Algeria, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, India, Japan, Pakistan, Serbia, South Africa, the UAE and the UK qualified and attended—some for their first time, while others have attended for many years.
2023 was the highest-scoring year ever. Although this is a “junior” competition, several of the participants have won medals in international competitions open to adults, including in recent MSO events, and the MCWC 2022.
Under-12s age category
The youngest age category—”Junior 1″—was won by Andrej Živanović, who achieved 2nd place last year, and also placed 4th in this year’s MSO online.
- 1st: 🇷🇸 Andrej Živanović (2291)
- 2nd: 🇮🇳 Veer Sahas Bagi (2135)
- 3rd: 🇩🇿 Mohamed Iyed M’Ghozzi (2071)
This was the first year that all 3 medal-winners scored over 2000 points. Special mention also to 🇦🇪 Madhav Krishna Seshadri Sumanth (1896) and 🇧🇦 Miloš Eskić (1688), who scored higher than all previous years’ bronze-medal scores.
Under-15s age category
The “Junior 2” category was the most competitive category this year, with many strong and determined mental calculators—30 entrants in total.
Despite being only 12 years old, Kaloyan won this contest with only 82 points unclaimed on the entire paper! He adds to his gold medals in the MSO online this year and at last year’s JMCWC. Stiaan wins his 4th consecutive medal at the JMCWC.
- 1st: 🇧🇬 Kaloyan Geshev (2531 points)
- 2nd: 🇮🇳 Vandan Nyati (2375 points)
- 3rd: 🇿🇦 Stiaan Scheepers (2336 points)
Several other competitors also scored much more than 2000 points and had potential to win medals: 🇩🇿 Manar Benmastora (2224); 🇦🇪 Raghav Krishna Seshadri Sumanth (2136) and 🇮🇳 Saksham Garg (2133).
Under-20s age category
The “Senior” category had a maximum score of 2744 and was dominated by three very experienced mental calculators from a team in India. Abhilakshya was also last year’s winner—and this year he improved his score by nearly 200 points and did not make any mistake or omission in the first 8 of 29 pages. Radhika’s score is her best-ever performance, and Parth wins his first medal after several years of dedication.
- 1st: 🇮🇳 Abhilakshya Arora (2612)
- 2nd: 🇮🇳 Radhika Maheshwari (2411)
- 3rd: 🇮🇳 Parth Garg (2190)
Algeria had two more strong candidates in the top 5 with scores above 1500: 🇩🇿 Walid Ksentini (1832) and 🇩🇿 Walid Henni (1725). Honorary mention to 🇩🇪 Joshua Spring (1784) who is 20 years old and no longer ineligible to compete, but scored very high.
Congratulations to all participants who attended the event—and thank you for contributing to make these days a positive and enjoyable experience.
Format of the Championship
The main contest is a 2-hour paper that includes a variety of mental math categories, such as:
- 726446 + 294855 [1021301]
- Find the integer that squares to 15100996 [3886]
- On what day of the week was 28-Mar-1764 [Wednesday]
Here are some resources that may help students (and their teachers) to prepare for the championship.
The day before the competition, there were workshops for all the participants, provided by mental calculation experts:
- Daniel Timms (me—author of this website)
- George Lane (creator of the Pegasus mental calculation trainer, and 5-time gold medallist at the MSO)
- Elke Kuge
- Willem Bouman
- Martin Drees
- Max Weber
The weekend was also very social, where both the children and their accompanying adults could meet others from around the world, for dinners, workshops and even a trip to a cake factory!
Hectoc Competition:
The Spring family organized a speed Hectoc competition, where participants had to produce the number 100 from a string of six digits (1–9) using the standard Hectoc rules. For example:
123456: 100 = 1 + (2 + 3 + 4) × (5 + 6)
224459: 100 = –2 + (2 × 44) + 5 + 9
There were 85 participants in total—29 in the younger age category and 56 in the full category. Each participant’s score is the number of Hectocs solved correctly in 25 minutes, from a selection of 80 questions.
Contestants born since 2008:
- 1st: 🇧🇬 Daniel Dimitrov (60)
- 2nd: 🇧🇬 Kaloyan Geshev (59)
- 3rd: 🇮🇳 Saksham Garg (48)
Contestants born by 2008:
- 1st: 🇧🇬 Georgi Georgiev (79)
- 2nd; 🇩🇪 Joshua Spring (74)
- 3rd: 🇮🇳 Vandan Nyati (73)
Some hectocs are more difficult to solve than others. Georgi’s score is therefore especially impressive, as he found solutions to all questions except one—including the most difficult ones that few others would solve.
Other Notable Details
🇮🇳 Swanand Bhore attempted to set some world records in mental calculation. In a brief activity on Sunday, he demonstrated the following:
- 10 additions of ten 10-digit numbers in less than 140 seconds (mostly correct)
- addition of 450 2-digit numbers flashed on the screen (“flash anzan”) at a rate of about 0.30 seconds per number (correct answer)
- over 100 calendar date calculations in one minute (the first 80+ correct)
The youngest participant this year was 🇵🇰 Muhammad Xerxes Asad, aged 6 years.
Sponsorship was generously provided by the Andreas Mohn Foundation.
Get Involved Next Year
Would you be interested in competing in this event, or do you know a young person talented in Mathematics or mental calculation? Here are some ways you can get started:
- This page has information about the 2023 paper (which was similar to the previous years’ papers)
- Try some of the medium-difficulty techniques, such as multiplication, fractions and exact cube roots of 6-digit numbers. With practice, your speed can improve dramatically!
- Contact Caroline Merkel (she organizes this event) for any communication about registering. This includes collaboration with regional events.
- Contact me (or other trainers) for any questions about training mental calculation.
- Look out for updates about future competitions.
It would be great to see even more countries joining next time!