THE Philippine Memory Team grabbed 26 medals, including 14 golds to finish third overall out of seven participating countries in the 2024 Asia Open Memory Championships recently at the Singapore Polytechnic University.
Coached by Anne Bernadette ‘AB’ Bonita, all six young Filipino ‘mind-trained athletes’ won medals in their respective disciplines against 51 opponents, with siblings — Grandmaster of Memory Chloe Andrea, Charles Andrei, and Chelsea Anne Galamgam leading the campaign.
The Filipinos garnered 8,377.94 points behind overall champion Japan (14,269.320) and Indonesia (10,774.97).
The other participating nations are Malaysia and Singapore and favorites Myanmar and China.
The 16-year-old Chloe Andrea, a Grade 11 student from Ateneo de Manila Senior High, dominated six disciplines – 30 minutes Binary Numbers, 30 minutes Numbers, 5 minutes Numbers, 30 minutes, Marathon Cards, Spoken numbers and 15 minutes Random Words – to claim the overall championship in the Junior Division.
Chloe Andrea also finished second in the 15-minute Names and Faces discipline, as well as in the 5-minute Speed cards and 5-minute Dates, while claiming the bronze medal in the 5-minute Random Images.
In the process, she elevated her GM status to Dan 2, completing the required criteria after successfully memorizing the 8 Decks of Shuffled Cards in 30 minutes, 79 seconds in memorizing one deck of cards (Speed Cards), 728 Random Numbers in 30 minutes and 160 random Words in 15 minutes.
Last year during the country’s hosting of the tournament, Chloe Andrea claimed her GM Dan 1 status.
“This is our largest gold medal haul in the Philippine Memory Team’s history of participation in the International Memory Sport Championships. Securing these medals was no walk in the park, especially when you’re up against a formidable lineup of international memory athletes and seasoned grandmasters of memory,” said Bonita, founder of The Brain Republic — Memory Enhancement and Mind Sports Training
“We sent strong memory athletes this year. We also have rising stars who showed exceptional performance in the recent event and young kids who have bright futures ahead,” she added.
Chloe’s younger siblings, Charles Andrei, 14, and Chelsea Anne, 12, also made their marks with the former claiming two gold medals in the junior class (5-minute Speed Card, 5-minute Dates), one silver (5-minute Random Images) and bronze (Random Images), while the latter topped the Kid’s 5-minute Speed Cards, while finishing second in the 15-minute Names and Faces, 5-minute Numbers and 30-minute Numbers and bronze in 5-minute Dates.
Both are students of the Victory Christian International School
Venir Manzalay III and Jessica Raine Rellora, both Grade 6 students at Dr. Yanga’s College, and Angel Mikhaila Sanchez, Grade 11 at Sotero Cabahug Forum for Literacy, also finished strong with the former dominating the 30-minute Random Cards, 15-minute Random Words and Spoken Numbers and got the bronze in the 5-minute Names and Faces.
Rellora topped the 15-minute Names and Faces, while Sanchez also received a citation as Best New Player.
