by Adeniyi Abdul

The Olympics may (understandably) not pay any attention to lesser “sports” such as texting but that doesn’t mean the skill that goes into such a dexterous act is unnoticed by the entire world. 17-year-old Austin Wierschke was crowned winner of the the sixth annual U.S. LG National Texting Competition which held in Times Square in New York City on Wednesday. The champion faced off against 10 other highly trained texters in a series of challenges for speed, accuracy and dexterity and emerged number one, clinching the $50,0o0 prize the second year in a row.

The competition consisted of three rounds which included texting a verse of the nursery rhyme Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star while blind-folded, texting with hands behind their backs and a special challenge known as Text Blitz, where contestants had to copy phrases splashed before them as fast as possible.

Wierschke won the prize for composing a 149-character message, with capitalization, punctuation and various symbols, in 39 seconds, telling reporters after, “I killed it.” Wiershke, who said he sent 500 texts a day to friend to help prepare for the competition also warned any who had ideas of taking his spot next year, saying, “I’ll see you next year. Bring it on.”