A 15-year-old Victorian boy has won $10,000 and a trip to New York after being crowned National Texting Champion in Sydney yesterday, but nearly had his title stolen by his friend.
The youngest competitor, Cheong Kit Au from Balwyn ,Victoria has won the huge prize after beating five other texters.
The LG National Texting Championships Grand Final was held yesterday afternoon at Parramatta Westfield in Sydney's West. The six finalists, including a wild card entrant, competed in various texting challenges, including texting while blindfolded, backwards and holding the phone upside down.
There were several restarts as the mostly teenage competitors proved accuracy was more difficult than speed.
Event MC Christiaan Van Vuuren, otherwise known as YouTube sensation Fully Sick Rapper, told the crowd "they didn't say it was going to be easy. They said it would be gruelling."
The competition, in its second year, went around the country and found the fastest texters, with the top five coming to Sydney for the final.
Last year's winner, Jian Li from Harris Park in New South Wales, returned to defend her title. The 19-year-old bartender told news.com.au before the competition that she wasn't very confident as "there's really strong competition this year".
Jian brought along a cheer squad of friends, but was knocked out in the final rounds.
Cheong Kit Au came up from Melbourne with his mother and a friend, Ryan Ou. Ryan Ou, also 15, won the wild card entry and in a twist of fate wound up competing against his Melbourne High School friend in the grand final.
Cheong told news.com.au that Ryan gave him "quite a scare".
After beating the other finalists, Cheong has walked away with $10,000 and a trip for two to New York to compete in the world championships, where the prize is a bit larger - $100,000.
The keen texter says he will spend some of the money on buying another New York ticket so both his parents can go with him.
Cheong estimates that he sends 150 to 200 text messages per day. When asked if his parents ever got annoyed at how many text messages he sends, he said "not anymore!".
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