LONDON: Erwin Balines and Mark Anthony Castaneda made it to the Top 10 ranking of world memory athletes. Balines and Castaneda, both from Mandaluyong City, tallied 4,779 and 4,703 points, respectively to end up 9th to 10th placers.

Johannes Mallow of Germany took the top spot with 8,413 points, while his compatriot Simon Reinhard placed second with 8,344 points.

Jonas von Essen of Sweden wound up third with 6,692 points followed by Boris Konrad of Sweden with 6,446, Christian Schäfer of Germany with 6,199, Ben Pridmore of Englandwith 5,472, Nelson Dellis of US with 5,273 and Ola Kåre Risa of Norway with 5,099.

The 24-year-old Balines from Polytechnic University of the Philippines-Manila, memorized a sixteen (16) deck of cards in an hour en route to his third grandmaster (GM) norm. He is the second Filipino Grandmaster of Memory after Castaneda got the grandmaster (GM) title in last year’s world meet in Guangzhou, China.

Castaneda, on the other hand, memorized a 193-number in perfectly arrangement in the Spoken Random Numbers event.