Turkey becomes world champion in keyboarding contest

By Hanife Sevinc and Kemal Karadag

ISTANBUL/ANKARA (AA) - The Turkish keyboard team has won eight medals, including three world championships, in an Internet keyboarding competition.

Nearly 1,500 competitors took part in the International Federation for Information and Communication Processing (Intersteno) International Keyboarding Championship via the Internet over April 14 to June 1.

The competition gave 24 medals to the top three competitors in eight categories.

The Turkish National Keyboard Team, which became world champion as a team, won eight medals, including three championships, two second places, and three third places.

The competition was open to students from public or private schools or associations, and for people 21 and over who registered through their national branch of Intersteno.

Participants could compete in their native languages but also in 17 foreign languages within four age categories.

Nisan Maya Tuncoglu from Afyonkarahisar, western Turkey, broke a world record in the children’s category by entering 109 words in a minute in her mother tongue. Tuncoglu also became the world champion in multilingual competitions with 473,366 keystrokes in 15 languages.

Celal Askin, who works in the Justice Ministry, became world champion in the senior category by entering 153 words in a minute.

Hailing the Turkish team, Justice Minister Abdulhamit Gul wrote on Twitter: “I congratulate our national team, which won first place in the World Internet Keyboarding Championship, and Justice Ministry Education Department staffer Celal Askin, who broke a new record.”

*Writing by Gozde Bayar