The 11th World Youth Scrabble Championship recently took place in Lille, France from 27 to the 29 August 2016. The Sri Lankan Youth Scrabble team topped the tables to retain the team title they won in Perth,  Australia,  in 2015. A total of 107 scrabblers from 15 countries fought over 24 rounds at this year’s championship.

Three participants from Royal College represented the Sri Lankan team this year namely, Aabid Ismail,  Qays Sangani and Janul de Silva who placed 3rd,  8th and 11th respectively. Aabid in addition to becoming 2nd runner up, emerged as the Under 16 World Champion this year and shared the Highest Word Award with compatriot Hansi Weerasooriya of Musaeus College and Sohaib Sanaullah from Pakistan. Qays Sangani , outperformed several of his more experienced teammates to emerge 8th at the Championship. Janul de Silva who emerged 4th overall and was the U-14 World Champion in 2015 narrowly missed out on a place in the top 10 and was placed 11th this year.

The team was felicitated in Paris by Sri Lanka’s Ambassador to France,  Tilak Ranaviraja at the embassy premises.

View the points table here: http://www.youthscrabble.org/wysc2016/results/a.html