A group of Sierra High students spent a portion of their summer in Europe.
Specifically, Stockholm for the World Scholar’s Cup 2024.
Miles Lima, Colin Nguyen, and Kaushik Chamchani, who was called upon to replace Douglas Tipton, were among the over 1,000 students from over 350 delegations across three age divisions at Intiman Theater in the capital city of Sweden.
The Stockholm global round took place on July 12 through 17.
“We connected with students from all around the world, including but not limited to delegations from Canada, Egypt, Zambia, Slovenia and Turkey,” said Lima, who is now a sophomore.
Chamchani, who is also a sophomore, had to get caught up to speed while filling in for Tipton – he was unable to attend at the last minute.
Chamchani studied over 150 pages of materials while paying a little bit out of pocket. “Kaushik performed incredibly well despite only having a week and a half to prepare,” Lima said.
The Timberwolves trio more than held its own, placing seventh in the 160-team division.
According to Lima – a talented musician who happens to be completely blind – the local team came away with four trophies and 31 medals.
“We won a silver medal in writing (top 50), and gold in the quiz bowl (top 15), in debate (top 10), and in the multiple-choice test (top 10). We have also advanced to the championship round, which will be held in New Haven this November,” he said.
The World Scholar’s Cup, founded in 2007, celebrates the joy of learning as well as an enrichment opportunity to motivate students to not just demonstrate their existing strength but to discover new ones.
Getting to Stockholm turned out to be quite the journey for Lima, Nguyen, and Chamchani.
They missed their connecting flight to Paris, and had 115 minutes to collect their luggage and check in to another airline.
“A task that would be perfectly reasonable to execute on most days. However, our bags took 90 minutes to be released, meaning we missed our connection,” Lima recalled.
The silver lining was spending the night in Paris and visiting the Eifel Tower along the way.
They eventually made it to Stockholm the next morning, by way of Finland.
“The event itself was incredible,” said Lima.
