What international tournaments exist that might be thought of as "mental" Olympics?

August 17, 2004 11:03 AM

What international tournaments exist that might be thought of as "mental" Olympics? (That is, they contain a range of competitions based on intellect, strategy, problem-solving, mental arithmetic, etc...)
posted by badstone to sports, hobbies, & recreation (7 comments total)

Certainly not Metafilter political flamewars.
posted by luriete at 11:16 AM on August 17, 2004

According to this IHT article , the World Memory Campionship (Aug. 28 to Aug. 30) and the Mind Sports Olympiad (Aug. 19 to Aug. 30) both in Manchester.
posted by golo at 11:37 AM on August 17, 2004

Odyssey of the Mind (formerly Olympics of the Mind, before the IOC made them change it).
posted by kindall at 12:07 PM on August 17, 2004

aw. That's sad. "Olympics of the Mind" or "Brain Olympics" would be cool.
posted by taz at 1:20 PM on August 17, 2004

Thanks golo, that's exactly what I was looking for. I was familiar with Olympics of the Mind, but was looking for a good example for grown ups.
posted by badstone at 2:05 PM on August 17, 2004

Chess tournaments? Spelling Bees?
posted by Asparagirl at 5:45 PM on August 17, 2004

They actually have "Olympics" for high school students in various science subjects. I know this because my partner - bless his geeky little heart - was a gold medal winner at the '92 Chemistry Olympics. He then went on to assistant coach the Australian Chemistry Olympiad team a couple of times. It's held in a different country every year. It's taken very, very seriously by some of the Asian countries, apparently. (He says, "Japan, like, don't enter teams anymore because their competitors started killing themselves because of the stress.") So it's a big deal to some folks.
posted by web-goddess at 5:46 AM on August 18, 2004