INTRODUCTION
This page looks at the World Quizzing Championships.
Charts
1. Medal Winners by Type
2. Number of Players to Finish in Top 10 by Country
3. Distribution of Top 100 at 2021 World Quizzing Championships
4. Distribution of Top 100 by Category
5. Top 20 Countries with Most Players in Top 1000 at WQC 2019 Adjusted for Population
Data Table
6. Top 50 Players in World Quizzing Championships by Region, Country and Performance by Category 2015 – 2019
Three quizzers have dominated the event since its inception – Kevin Ashman from England, Pat Gibson from Ireland and Olav Bjormont from England. They won 14 of the 20 events between them. All 3 players are based in England although Pat Gibson was born and grew up in Ireland. The two biggest nearly winners are, by far, Steve Perry from the USA and Tero Kalliolevo from Finland. While it is clearly a western dominated event, 2 non-western players have won – Vikram Joshi from Indian and Ravikant Awa from Indonesia.
The bar chart above shows the number from each country who have finished in the top 10 in any of the events from 2003 to 2022. England has the most players in to finish in the top 10. In terms of winners, England has been especially dominant. 4 of the 9 players to have won have been English and 12 of the 20 events have been won by an English player. Estonia also is notable because it is a very small country yet has had 4 players to finish in the top 10, more than all but 3 countries. This suggests it has a deeply rooted culture of quizzing. The presence of India and the absense of China at the elite level of quizzing is also noteworthy.
This chart shows the national distribution of the top 100 competitors at the 2019 World Quizzing Championships. A striking feature is the dominance of English-speaking countries, particularly England (21%) and the United States (20%), which together account for over two-fifths of the top competitors. This likely reflects both the popularity of quiz culture in these countries and the advantage of competing in English, which is the primary language used in many international quiz competitions.
Belgium (10%) and Scotland (9%) also have strong representation relative to their population size, reflecting active national quizzing communities and well-developed quiz leagues. Norway (8%) and Croatia (7%) similarly perform strongly, highlighting how smaller countries can produce large numbers of top competitors when quizzing is well organised domestically.
Ireland, Estonia, and Germany also contribute several competitors, while India—despite its large population—accounts for only a small share, possibly due to fewer international competitors attending the event. Overall, the chart illustrates how quiz success tends to be concentrated in countries with established competitive quiz cultures and strong English-language proficiency.
As expected, countries perform differently well in different categories. American quizzers tend to do much better on medicine than sport. This is likely due to the fact that Americans are less in tune with non-American sports. Belgian quizzers do much better on lifestyle than on Medicine. English players tend to have less variation in which fields they do well in although there were more English players in top 100 for lifestyle and Entertainment than other categories.
The chart above shows population adjusted representation in the top 1000 players at the 2019 championships. This shows which countries have more widespread quizzing cultures though not necessarily who is best at producing champions. Estonia appears to be have the highest per capita representation followed by Croatia. Lithuania, a Baltic country close to Estonia, is third. England is not as high in this chart as might be expected given it’s dominance of the event. This suggests that while England is among the best at producing quizzers at the elite level and by far the best at this among the major nations, it’s quizzing culture perhaps isn’t as widespread in the general population compared to in the Baltic countries for example.
Given that it’s a European dominated event, notable absences from this chart are France, Italy and Spain. Portugal is the only mediterranean country in the top 30. This could partly be explained by the fact that quizzing is generally an indoor pursuit and has less appeal in warmer climates. That may also partly explain the success of Baltic and British Isles countries.