Scrabble genius wins Spanish championship – without knowing Spanish

Published 13 December 2024 at 17.12

Cultural news. New Zealand Scrabble champion Nigel Richards has once again shocked the world by winning the Spanish World Scrabble Championships – despite not even being fluent in the language.

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TwittraShare< p>Already known for his incredible achievements on the board, Nigel Richards defeated over 145 opponents from countries such as Spain, Argentina and Colombia during the competition in Granada.

His performance included 22 straight wins, which saw him easily crowned champion.

– This is an incredible humiliation, said final opponent Benjamín Olaizola, who describes Richards as a “gifted man” with “very specific abilities”.

Richards, who has been called the “Tiger Woods of Scrabble”, has previously won world titles in both English and French. In 2015, he became the world champion in French-language Scrabble after only nine weeks of learning the French Scrabble vocabulary.

His friend Liz Fagerlund explains that Richards has a unique ability to memorize words:

– He can read a page of words and take in everything that is written there, she tells CNN.

Despite his international fame, Richards lives a reclusive life. He avoids interviews and is described as a loner who prefers cycling to alcohol, television and radio.