2004 World Junior Championship
UK Press Coverage
Before the start of the 2004 World Junior Tantrix Championship ("WJTC"), Northern Ireland's top Sunday newspaper, Sunday Life, reported on 14-year-old Simon Wright (GBR) and his quest to emulate kiwi Matt Peek's feat in the adult World Championship by winning a third successive title.
The story can be found in the 11 January 2004 edition of Sunday Life or viewed below, followed by our own short preview, but in fact the best way to see the text at its most legible is to read the Internet version on the Sunday Life's own website. For those good at spotting the 'deliberate mistakes' in press articles yes, you are correct, the Cambridge event referred to is really the British Open not the World Championship!
Tantrix has not yet taken off in Northern Ireland to the same extent as in other parts of the UK, making Simon's achievement in winning the first two WJTCs all the more impressive, though we are not quite sure playing nearly every day does not count as "training"! ;-).
With NZL's Chris Hill now the top-rated junior thanks mainly to his heroics for 2003 World Team Championship runners-up NZL B, not to mention some very good young Hungarians and fast-improving Swedes in the mix, the 2004 WJTC will be by far the strongest so far, giving Simon his biggest challenge yet.
However, Simon's good recent form and his courageous (and in the end convincing) comeback win against Chris in last year's Final suggest that he will remain very hard to beat for anyone who wants to take the World Junior trophy away from him.
You can follow the 2004 WJTC here.
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