The 3rd International Mind Lab Olympics,  was held at the Feriye Lokantasi Convention Hall in the city of Istanbul, Turkey between May 31st and June 1^st,  2008.

To get into the "Mind Lab" spirit, a day before the actual tournament took place, the Mind Lab Group held a "Multinational Tournament". As the purpose of the tournament was not only to prepare the children for the "real deal" the next day, but also to allow them to familiar themselves with the other children from the other countries, the teams were made up of four competitors from four different countries. Each team was given a color that represented them at this special competition.

 

The Multinational Tournament was held in the "Swiss system", where in each round, each team plays against the team which has managed to achieve the closest number of points to what she has. After an exciting battle that lasted for seven whole rounds, the brown team was declared the winner of the tournament.

 

This Multinational event was a proven to be a great success. The children enjoyed the chance of playing with new team members, and were able to see that their rivals were just like them: kids who came to the tournament to above hall have fun and enjoy themselves. We look forward to having similar events in the future international tournaments.

 

The day of the actual international tournament was a very exciting day for everyone present.

The great audience consisted of the proud families of the competitors who arrived especially from their home countries in order to watch their children try to bring home the title of the international champions.

 

The tournament was held in the "league system", where every team competes against all the other teams and consisted of a total of seven rounds, 20 min. per round. Anybody who was present at the time the games went on, was easily impressed by the high level of playing shown by such young players. What was even more impressive was the behaviour of the players throughout the event. They knew how to accept their loses respectfully, how to cheer on their teammates in their time of need, and were generally  "good sports".

 

The matches were very exciting and fascinating, keeping everyone "at the edge of their sits", cheering on their favorite players, the parents crossing their fingers for the success of their kids.

 

After a few rounds, impressing everyone with its skills, the Israeli team was marked as the potential winner, and indeed took the 1st place eventually.The team from England, and the local Turkish team that were "neck to neck" all throughout the competition,  finished in 2^nd and 3^rd.

 

Although not claiming any title, the Hungarian, Spanish, Italian and Romanian teams still gave an honest good fight, proving that they keep on improving every single year. Especially impressive were the performances of the Scottish team that participated at the Mind Olympics for their first time. The team faced the challenge of competeing against more experienced teams very successfuly, and left no doubt that in the Olympics to come, they will be tough rivals to beat.

 

The  award ceremony was extremely exciting for everyone present, especially for the champions who were greeted with standing ovations.To us in the Mind Lab Group, the way a game is played is much more important than the game's outcome, and thus we would like to say to all the participants, YOU ARE ALL CHAMPIONS!

 

We would like to take this opportunity to thank all the staff members of Mind Lab Turkey for all of the efforts and work they put in to making this event as successful as it turned out to be!