Microsoft Excel UK Championships Crowned Its First Winner

Ha Dang, a self-taught accountant from Scunthorpe who trained via YouTube, won the inaugural Microsoft Excel UK Championships on September 30. The victory earned him a spot at the Microsoft Excel World Championships in Las Vegas, a three-day tournament inside a 30,000-square-foot esports arena where players compete for $5,000 and are broadcast on ESPN. Thirty competitors sat shoulder to shoulder through three gruelling rounds of spreadsheet challenges. Each round featured a custom case with seven levels of increasing difficulty. The second round case, Right Royal Battle Part II, took 80 drafts to perfect. Players calculated troop sizes from emoji battalions and army movements across fourteenth-century France. Hadyn Wiseman, who once held the Guinness World Record for most backflips in a minute, placed fourth. Lara Holding-Jones finished thirteenth. Jaq Kennedy founded the UK chapter last year. National chapters have since formed in Germany, Brazil, and Chile.

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