An eight-year-old Gozitan schoolboy has come top of the class in a global mathematics competition, despite admitting that he didn’t always enjoy maths.

Leon Azzopardi beat almost 25,000 other children in his age group and was the youngest Maltese winner in this year's SUPERTMATIK International Math Competition.

Competitors are timed as they solve a series of mental arithmetic challenges and the year three whizzkid completed his challenge in 32.9 seconds, beating a previous world record - also set by a Gozitan student – at the same time.

Speaking to Times of Malta, the Għarb primary school student said he was “happy and excited” to win the competition. “I didn’t always enjoy maths but now I feel better about it,” he said.

“I would like to keep doing it and I feel excited for next year – and I hope I can win again,” he said. He is now waiting to receive his gold medal and certificate from the competition’s organisers.

And while Leon was the youngest student from Malta to achieve first place, three other Maltese competitors also secured the top place in their respective age categories: Giuseppi Falzon, also from Għarb primary, Wayne Bartolo, from Żebbuġ primary and Amber Gauci, from Maria Regina College, in Naxxar.

In fact, Malta came first among all the countries that took part, with Spain and Portugal placed in second and third place respectively. Maltese students dominated the top 10 with 38 of the 90 top 10 places awarded over the nine age groups.

Malta came first among all the countries that took part

The youngster started training for the competition in November, practising daily at school with his teacher and at home with his parents.

SUPERTMATIK is a maths card game that students can either play one-on-one, against a computer or in timed trials, with the latter used for the recent competition. 

In each of the three rounds of the competition, students were shown 15 cards, one after the other, and asked to solve one of the 10 maths questions on each card selected at random.

In Leon’s age category, the questions were limited to addition and subtraction, with multiplication and division included for older students.

The youngster comes from an academic family, with his mother, Christine Azzopardi Tabone, a medical scientist and his father, Stefan Azzopardi, a principal in the education department.

His mother said that although her son was a good all-round student, she had never realised he had such a strong ability in maths but had always encouraged him to do his best.

“I just told him to keep believing in himself and he put a lot of effort into the competition,” she said.

Commenting on his son’s achievement, his father said he was “very happy” for his son, adding one of the biggest challenges had been to keep the youngster’s two sisters aged five and two years old quiet while he was practising at home.

Meanwhile, Leon’s teacher at Għarb primary, Donald Gauci said he was pleased to see his student perform so well in the competition – and to see Malta perform so well too.