Wang Feng, a 20-year-old student from China's Wuhan University, clinched the individual title at the 19th World Memory Championships in Guangzhou, south China's Guangdong Province, on December 2-5. Wang is the first Chinese to win the competition, widely considered the highest-level competition of memory sport in the world.

Wang took first place in five of the competition's 10 events, and he broke four world records. His record-setting total of 9,486 points, established him firmly as the planet's top memory man and his performance will be enshrined in the Guinness Book of Records and the Book of Mental World Records.

Wang said the key to having an excellent memory is transforming information to images in the head. For instance, he memorizes a long list of numbers by turning those numbers into similar-pronounced words and making stories up based on those words. When more numbers come, he just needs to make the story in his head longer.

The World Memory Championships were founded in 1991 by Tony Buzan, inventor of Mind Maps. Competitors are challenged in 10 different disciplines, each designed to test ability to memorize different types of information.