Man who doesn't speak Spanish wins Spanish Scrabble championship
13/12/2024
Translation: machine translated
A New Zealander who doesn't speak Spanish has won the Spanish Scrabble Championship. This is not the first time he has achieved such a curious victory.
"Hola", "Gracias", "Paella"... Most people know a few Spanish words, but even the most linguistically gifted talents don't have enough to win a Scrabble championship. Not so for New Zealander Nigel Richards: although he doesn't speak Spanish, he still won this year's Spanish Scrabble championship. This is reported by the English Guardian.
The tournament took place in Granada with 145 participants. There were 24 rounds in total, in which words had to be created from randomly drawn letters. He won 23 of these rounds, including against opponents from Argentina, Venezuela, Spain and Colombia.
Richards is good at confusing his opponents
Benjamín Olaizola took second place. He told Spanish broadcaster La Cadena Ser that Richards is a "gifted man" with "very special skills". According to him, the winner often makes unexpected moves to confuse his opponents.
In preparation, Richards had apparently memorised the Spanish Scrabble word list and had already started a year earlier.
Source: Keystone SDA
He has also won the French championship twice
It is also not the first time that the 57-year-old has won a Scrabble tournament in a language that is foreign to him: According to the English Independent magazine, he has won around 200 tournaments. In 2015 and 2018, he won the French Scrabble championship, despite barely speaking the language.
A close friend of Richards, Liz Fagerlund, told Medium New Zealand Harald: "He just learnt the words. But he doesn't know what they mean and wouldn't be able to hold a conversation in French." He had only been practising for nine weeks. He also won the English World Cup four times.
Richards has been playing for over 30 years and is regarded as one of the best players in the world. As Liz Fagerlund went on to say, he himself does not understand all the fuss and refuses to speak to journalists despite numerous requests.
Here you can watch a video from Reuters showing the bizarre winner on sale.
Header image: Bored Photopraphy / Shutterstock
A true local journalist with a secret soft spot for German pop music. Mum of two boys, a dog and about 400 toy cars in all shapes and colours. I always enjoy travelling, reading and go to concerts, too.