Andres Kuusk became the world champion in the mental sports pentathlon for the sixth time!

Andres Kuusk won a record sixth world championship title at the 28th World Pentathlon Championships held in London from August 18-26. The Estonian won gold with a combined score of 491.9 points, while Portuguese Guilherme Neves won silver with 483.4 points and Englishman Ankush Khandelwal won bronze with 478 points.

The long race started best with Guilherme Neves, who led until the final moments of the sixth day of competition, when he finally had to cede the lead to Andres Kuus. With two victories on the penultimate day, defending champion Ankush Khandelwal also moved into the competition for first place, and the later medalists all started the final day with gold in mind.

Backgammon, which was the last game planned, was presumably the best fit for the Englishman, who practices this game as a professional, but in the decisive match of the penultimate round, Andres Kuusk unexpectedly won a solid 7-1, thus securing the overall victory. According to the Estonian, the victory was made especially sweet by the fact that in the decisive tournament he defeated his main competitor with his own trump card. "Considering that only a few weeks ago Ankush had defeated the world's best player in this game, the Japanese Mochy, in Backgammon, it is difficult to imagine a better scenario," he noted.

For Andres Kuus, it was his sixth world championship title, making him the most successful mental athlete of all time in this category. Until now, the record with five gold medals was held by the current world-leading artificial intelligence developer and CEO of Google Deep Mind, Demis Hassabis. No other Estonians managed to break into the top ten this time. Madli Mirme was 21st with 410.1 points, and Kevin Kaido Kallikorm was 48th with 322.2 points. However, Madli Mirme's result was the second best in the women's category, surpassed only by Natasha Regan, who came in 15th overall with 430.3 points.

The next, 29th, World Pentathlon Championships will be held in Mallorca in April 2025.

I don't remember exactly whether Indrek or Andres was ever loaned to the Hiiumaa chess team in the 90s :D Anyway, they had to play each other on the so-called youth board (Baltic Islands Games) - that is, the Hiiumaa vs. Saaremaa game. We took the right twin, for some reason I think it was Andres after all :) . A very good summary of the history of Hiiumaa chess has been compiled by Margis Sööd, but there are no protocols or results for this specific competition, which probably took place in 1992, in Åland. You could find notes about it in articles in Hiiu Leh that year, but the truth is that the Hiiumaa people were able to borrow 1 twin from the Saaremaa people to their team :) . At that time, 6 Baltic Sea islands were supposed to participate in the tournament, but unfortunately only 4 teams were present.... Therefore, the tournament ended early and both Kuuses probably remember the funny adventures from the chair period well.... The whole trip is characterized quite well by the fact that 1 of the members of the Hiiumaa team had not even been to Tallinn for over 30 years :D . Not to mention abroad or Åland . It was a great adventure and the twins were still young boys at the time, but they both had a knack for mental sports back then!