World Quizzing Championship
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The World Quizzing Championship is an individual quiz contest organised by the International Quizzing Association - a not-for-profit organisation based in England. The competition has been staged annually since 2003 with an increasing number of contestants from several nations. The reigning champion is Kevin Ashman from England, who won the competition in 2006 for the third year in a row.
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[edit] Competition history
[edit] 2003
A fledgling event was first staged by Quizzing.co.uk in 2003 at Villa Park football stadium, Birmingham, England. This saw 50 quizzers representing a handful of nations compete in a written test of quiz knowledge. The winner on that day being Olav Bjortomt.
[edit] 2004
In 2004, following the foundation of the International Quizzing Association, "IQA", the event was held simultaneously in 5 countries including the United Kingdom (joined by quizzers from elsewhere, including Ireland), Belgium (joined by quizzers from The Netherlands), Estonia, India, and Malaysia. Some 300+ quizzers took part, the UK leg being staged at Manchester United's Old Trafford football stadium.
[edit] 2005
The 2005 championship on July 2, saw further significant growth with the event benefiting from the sponsorship of MSN Search. Countries joining the original five competing nations included Australia, Finland, Indonesia, Norway and Singapore. Quizzers sat eight papers of 30 questions each, covering different subject matters: 'Culture', 'Entertainment', 'History', 'Lifestyle', 'Media', 'Sciences', 'Sport and Games', and 'World', with the lowest score from the eight genres being dropped - although these did come into play to settle tie-break situations. The eight genres were won outright or shared by quizzers from seven different countries (Belgium, England, Estonia, Finland, India, Ireland, and Norway) reflecting that the questions were of a truly international flavour.
Efforts to encourage the participation of women in the contest (competitive quizzing has hitherto been something of a male-dominated pastime) were rewarded in 2005 with a win for Trine Aalborg of Norway in the 'Lifestyle' category and a sixth place overall for Dorjana Sirola of Croatia (who also finished 3rd among those competitors who had gathered at Silverstone motor racing circuit for the UK leg of the competition). In India, another woman, Debashree Mitra of Bangalore took 3rd place overall also.
[edit] 2006
On June 3, 2006 the World Quizzing Championships were held at more than 15 locations around the globe. First time organisers were Lithuania, Germany, Switzerland, Liberia and Sri Lanka. People of a multitude of nationalities took part, including representatives from the USA, Australia, Russia, Singapore, Hungary and France. The title was, for the 3rd year running, won by Kevin Ashman.
- Kevin Ashman (UK)
- Pat Gibson (Ireland)
- Nico Pattyn (Belgium)
- Marc Van Springel (Belgium)
- Olav Bjortomt (UK)
- Ronny Swiggers (Belgium)
- Dorjana Sirola (Croatia, and the world's highest placed woman)
[edit] List of winners
The World Championship winners to date are:
- 2003 Olav Bjortomt of England
- 2004 Kevin Ashman of England
- 2005 Kevin Ashman of England
- 2006 Kevin Ashman of England
Pat Gibson (Ireland) and Nico Pattyn (Belgium) finished second and third respectively in 2004, 2005 and 2006.
