A Saudi and two Indian students from the Kingdom made their places in top four ranks in the 15th Annual Universal Concept Mental Arithmetic System (UCMAS) Abacus and Mental Arithmetic Competition held in Cyberjaya, Malaysia. About 5,000 participants — 32 from the Kingdom — from 42 countries participated in the competition this week. The competition had 10 categories ranging from beginners to advance. Each category had 600 participants and with a time limit of eight minutes. Karthiga Mohan, 11, from Riyadh, won the championship beating 600 participants in intermediate category. Sandeep Narayan, 9, from Jubail, got third rank in intermediate category. In elementary category Karim Jalal Atassi, 11, from Jeddah grabbed 4th position. Mohan scored 100 percent by solving 200 numerical problems in just eight minutes while Narayan solved 194 out of 200 problems correctly. Mohan is class VII student of International Indian School Riyadh while Narayan is in Class V of International Indian School Jubail. Attasi is Future Experts Center student. Last year also three Indian students from the Kingdom won awards in the same competition. “All the participants are on cloud nine to carry the Saudi flag and win an award at the international level at such a young age,” said Muhammad Rafi, UCMAS program manager for the Kingdom. The winners received trophies and Certificate of International Achievement. “More surprise awards are to be announced by next week,” Rafi added.
