The world's best human calculators gathered in Germany last week for the two-yearly Olympics of mental arithmetic

It is often said that the reason Alfred Nobel did not endow one of his prizes in mathematics was because his wife was having an affair with a mathematician.

While this story has been debunked it is nevertheless frustrating to mathematicians, especially during Nobel week, that the noblest of the sciences is ignored by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

For competitive mathematicians, however, there are other contests to enjoy at this time of year, such as the Mental Calculation World Cup, which has just taken place in Gießen, Germany.

Held every two years, the world cup unites the world's best arithmeticians who compete in addition, multiplication, square roots and other categories.

This year's overall winner was Naofumi Ogasawara, a 22-year-old abacus instructor from Japan. Britain's highest-placed candidate George Lane was seventh.

In the addition category, where contestants are presented with 10 sums of 10 10-digit numbers each, Ogasawara broke the world record: he completed them in three minutes and 11 seconds.

The Mental Calculation World Cup is now in its fifth edition, and is a major event in the field of "mind sports", which embrace the skills of mental arithmetic and memory.

Ogasawara, who was competing for the first time, blew apart the field. He won the overall title even though he scored zero in one of the main categories – that of "calendar calculation", in which you are presented with a list of dates from 1600 to 2100 and given 60 seconds to name the day of the week for as many of them as possible.

This category was won by Myagmarsuren Tuuruul from Mongolia, who managed 57 correct answers.

The overall table is below, but the full results can be found here.