An 8-year-old Nigerian, Tani Adewumis, whose family is homeless, won first place at the New York State chess championship without a single defeat at the beginning of 2019 and he says he is not done yet.

“I want to be the youngest grandmaster,” Tani told The New York Times. Tani placed first in the tournament for kindergarten through third grade — an outstanding win for anyone. “It’s unheard of for any kid, let alone one in a homeless shelter,” said Russell Makofsky, who is in charge of the chess program.

Tani hasn’t had an easy life. His family left northern Nigeria in 2017 fearing attacks on Christians, and moved to New York City over a year ago where the boy learned how to play chess at school. School chess coach Shawn Martinez saw Tani’s potential after observing him stand out in the game a few weeks after first learning it early last year. He reached out to Tani’s family about joining in the school’s chess program, and learned they were unable to pay costs associated with membership. Shawn decided to abandon Tani’s fees, which can easily reach thousands with travel and chess camp admissions.

Seven victories later, the elementary school boy is one of the top players in the country for his age group. “He works very hard at his game,” Martinez said, believing Tani could achieve master status in the next year or two. The world’s youngest grandmaster qualified at the age of 12.

As Tani’s story hits national headlines, more people want to help. Makofsky, who set up a GoFundMe for Tani, said the family has received offers for a car, legal services, jobs and even housing. “My hope is that he’ll be in a home tonight,” Makofsky said.

A nine-year-old boy has set a new 5km parkrun world record for his age group. Louis Robinett, a member of the Poole Runners junior athletics club, shaved 13 seconds off the previous world record, which was set in California in 2017, after he crossed the line in 17 minutes and 40 seconds.

Louis, who broke the record at the Poole parkrun in Dorset on Saturday, said, “I’m on top of the world right now. It’s a huge deal to break a world record. I couldn’t have done it without the support of my family and the team at Poole Runners.”

Louis was accompanied on the parkrun by Dion Garner, a member of his athletics club, as all under-11s in the 5km event must run within arm’s length of an adult. Garner said of Louis’s achievement, “His natural talent, combined with his dedication and spirit, is mind-blowing. He loves the sports and has really practiced a lot.” A spokesman for Poole Runners said, “With his new world record, Louis has raised the bar for young athletes everywhere. This isn’t just a win for Louis, it’s a new benchmark (标准) for youth sports, inspiring children all over the world to aim higher.”

Parkrun was started by 13 friends as a weekly event in Bushy Park, southwest London, in 2004. By 2015 more than 80,000 people were gathering in parks around the world each Saturday to participate in a parkrun. Only three years later about a quarter of a million people were taking part in parkruns each week, in 1,500 events spread across 20 countries. In comparison, 48,000 runners took part in the London Marathon this year.

What do you think of your Chinese? If you think your Chinese is good enough, you can take part in the competition named Chinese Characters Dictation Competition(中国汉字听写大会).

Today teenagers are using more and more smart phones. They spend too much time in shopping, chatting, playing games and so on. Many of them cannot stop using smart phones to help with their study. Overuse of smart phones will make students too lazy to think and write. Some of them even forget how to write Chinese characters by hand. Teachers and parents are very worried about it.

In order to draw people’s attention to the problems above, in 2013 CCTV held the first Chinese Characters Dictation Competition. About 200 students from 32 teams took part in it. They stood on the stage to write down Chinese characters by dictation. Lu Jialei, a 14-year-old girl from Zhejiang, got first place.

Since then, the competition has been popular among teenagers. Many people are interested in this kind of competition, too. They like to write down the characters while the competitors(参赛者)are writing them.

Can you be the next winner?