Who Will Become the Next Ultimate Typing Champion?
An online speed typing challenge is offering a grand prize of $5,000 to whomever can type the most words per minute.
By Jessie Schiewe
Can you take a banal office skill and turn it into something riveting and exciting to watch? Speed typists would say so.
After a 10 year hiatus, Das Keyboard is hosting its second Ultimate Typing Championship — an online speed typing competition to see who has the fastest fingers on a keyboard.
Streamed live on Twitch at 12 p.m. Central on Saturday, August 22, the 25 contestants, aged 13 and over, will compete in five 1 to 2 minute rounds to see who can type the fastest words per minute. Using a multiplayer typing site called TyprX, the typists will power through excerpts from books, movies, songs, etc., that will also include capital letters, numbers, and punctuation.
All 25 typists will receive a Das Keyboard for competing in the contest, with the runner-up taking home $500. The grand champion will receive the largest prize of them all: $5,000 and the title of being the Ultimate Typing Champion.
Unlike the competition’s very first event in 2010 where typists competed at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, this one will take place virtually, and as such, has a few new twists to it. According to a press release from Das Keyboard:
“In addition to competing for speed, this year’s competition will contain unique challenges that will test a variety of typing skills and provide entertainment for viewers of all ages.”
The 2020 Ultimate Typing Championship will also have a commentator — Nico Borst — to liven up the event for viewers tuning in.
Though he’s a pianist and composer by trade, Borst himself has rather speedy fingers, having hosted his own virtual typing contest in 2019 called The Clicking Championship.
“I never really thought of my typing ability as something special, but any online test I take shows I'm in the 99th percentile for fast typing,” he told OK Whatever via email.
“Typing fast is like improving any skill. One trick or method will not suddenly jump you from an 80 wpm average to 150 wpm. Instead, you need constant, focused, regular practice on speed typing.”
The aspect of being a speed typist doesn’t just come in handy in competitions. Borst noted that there’s also practical implications to being quick fingered.
“Writing (for work, school, creative outlets, online discussion, etc.) becomes a much quicker and efficient process. In a discussion, for example, I can spend a minimal amount of time...getting out my thoughts and instead focus on what I want to say and what the other person has said.”
For Saturday’s Ultimate Typing Championship, Borst will be doing his best to make the competition just as exciting as watching any other sport. In addition to giving insight into the art of typing as a whole, he’ll be interviewing the typists individually and discussing their strategies, giving play-by-plays of the action as it happens, and “in general keep[ing] the event fun and entertaining.”
In the end, Borst hopes that speed typing events like this will help popularize the sport, inspiring future contestants to pick up speed typing while at the same time growing a bigger audience.
Watch the Ultimate Typing Championship on Saturday, August 22, 2020 at 12 p.m. Central via Twitch
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