HALIFAX – To be named an International Master of Memory is a rare honour, but a Grade 10 student in Windsor, N.S. has been named Canada’s first.
Evan Xie, a student of King’s-Edgehill School is just one of 160 people in the entire world to earn the distinction.
Xie had trained for six months for the World Memory Championships in China and had pushed himself to practicing for ten hours a day in the week leading up to the competition.
He and about 300 other participants took part in three days of tests ranging from memorizing numbers to remembering faces and recalling digits.
Among the feats:
- Memorize a minimum of 1,000 digits in random sequence in one hour
- Memorize a minimum of 12 decks of randomly shuffled cards in one hour
- Memorize one deck of cards in less than two minutes
Xie went above and beyond the requirements, though, memorizing 1,180 digits in an hour.
He also memorized 12 decks of cards in an hour and memorized a deck of poker cards in 32.275 seconds.
WATCH BELOW: Evan Xie rhymes off all cards in a deck of cards that he easily memorized moments before
He’s not far off from the world record on the poker cards.
Xie received his award from the Prince and Princess of Poland and quickly became a celebrity. He was presented flowers upon his arrival at his hometown in China and schoolchildren crowded around him to take photos when he visited a primary school.
But now that he’s attained the title of master, Xie is taking a break from competition.
“I will focus on my study in high school and improve my English because it’s my second language here and maybe in university or after that, I’ll be back to championships,” he said.
Xie is now offering to share his sharp memory skills with his classmates at King’s-Edgehill.
King’s-Edgehill Headmaster Mr. Seagram said Xie is an inspiration to the entire school.
“Our staff and student body are extremely proud of Evan’s prestigious award and all the hard work that he put into the training that led to his accomplishment,” he said.
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