Sydney's 'Annihilator' Excels At World Spreadsheet Championship

Sydney man Andrew Ngai has created history by winning the Microsoft Excel World Championship for a third consecutive year. As per a report by Australian Broadcasting Corporation News, Mr. Ngai, who is dubbed “The Annihilator”, clinched this year's title during an esports event in Las Vegas.

Andrew Ngai, who began competing in 2018, has now called the competition “pretty intense.” On winning the competition, Mr. Ngai received $ 3,000 (about Rs. 2,49,000) in prize money, a trophy and a wrestling-style champion's belt.

The report added that this competition witnesses data crunchers solving problems using Excel spreadsheets. In addition, the participants are given problems related to mathematics, financial modelling as well as board and card games.

Before a winner is declared, participants with the lowest points are eliminated one by one. The report quoted Andrew Ngai as saying, “It's pretty intense because it's just half an hour per case, so time ticks pretty quickly.” However, he called the competition “exciting” at the same time. Talking about the process, Mr Ngai added that the competition is gripping, as points of every player fluctuate throughout the half an hour.

He said, “People get eliminated, you overtake people throughout the whole half hour, so it can be quite exciting to watch the scores go up and down. Obviously, it feels good.”

Congratulating Andrew Ngai on his big win, the official Instagram page of Microsoft shared a special post in the form of an Excel table. The text on the picture read, “Microsoft Legends of Excel. Meet the winner of Microsoft Excel World Championship 2023—The legendary Andrew Ngai.”

Sharing the post, Microsoft wrote in the caption, “A new legend is among us: Andrew Ngai, the 2023 Microsoft Excel World Champion. You didn't just succeed—you Exceled. Drop mic.”

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Mr Ngai, while sharing his experience of participating in the championship, said, “This time was a bit different because it was in person … I guess it felt a bit more special and a bit more nervous, with everyone watching you live and screaming — the crowd screaming as things were happening.”

He added, “We're good with numbers. Before I got into Excel competitions I had already been using Excel for more than a decade, so that quite naturally helped me in these competitions.”