Melbourne 13-year-old wins World Youth Scrabble Championship in Nairobi

Dineth Fernando’s first language isn’t English and he only arrived in Melbourne six months ago – but already he has claimed an international Scrabble title with an Australian flag draped around his shoulders.

The 13-year-old won the 2026 World Youth Scrabble Championship in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi on the weekend, becoming the fourth Australian representative in the competition’s history to take out the prize.

During the three-day tournament, Dineth played 24 games of the classic word game, going head-to-head against more than 130 opponents from 15 different countries.

“It took a lot of stress and effort to navigate through the days,” said Dineth, who moved with his family in February from Sri Lanka.

“But I just needed to concentrate on the game, nothing else.

“Like, don’t care if there is a live camera going on, I just needed to jumble the rack, find the word and play – that’s all.”

This was Dineth’s third attempt at the world championships and the trip to Nairobi had already forced him to contend with jetlag on top of the nerves.

But after more than 20 hours of play, and carefully placed words including “lauf” (a run in bobsleighing), “novelese” (a style of writing characteristic of poor novels), “minceur” (a French word for thinness), “histrio” (an archaic word meaning actor) and “postering”, the 13-year-old emerged victorious on Sunday.

Prasanna Fernando almost cried when his son was crowned the world youth Scrabble champion.

“It feels unreal,” Fernando said. “I sometimes still can’t believe he actually won it because the level of competition was extremely high.

“But I always knew he was capable of doing it one day.”

Dineth got his first taste for the game when he and his family were still living in Sri Lanka.

At eight years old, he joined the school Scrabble club before hiring a private coach as he flew all over the country to compete.

His family moved to Australia in February for his father’s work but he continued his pursuit for Scrabble greatness, entering competitions and playing against people such as Melbourne-based two-time Scrabble world champion and 2006 youth Scrabble winner David Eldar, and even beating world champion finalist Harshan Lamabadusuriya.

His accolades quickly grew, becoming runner-up at the Wodonga open Scrabble championship, winning the Ballarat open championship and eventually taking out the Australian youth prize.

The Scrabble Victoria secretary, Carol Johnsen, has faced the teenager a few times and, though he had luck on his side, she says he is also a force to be reckoned with.

“He is an astounding player,” she said. “The tiles just flowed for him: he got the X and the Z and the Q and they all went in the right places.

“I had no hope and he’s beat me by over 200 points each time.”

Dineth spends more than three hours a day studying Scrabble words and believes his discipline and hard work gave him an edge at the youth competition.

Though English is not his first language, he does not see this as an issue, since the game’s dictionary is a combination of many languages including English, Latin, French and more.

Nigel Richards, a five-time world champion, became famous for winning Scrabble tournaments in languages he didn’t speak, taking out the French title in 2015 and 2018, and the Spanish-language competition in 2024.

For those at the top levels of Scrabble, it is closer to mathematics and pattern recognition than a language game, according to Johnsen.

But Dineth’s favourite thing about Scrabble is the opportunity it offers for him to learn new words.

After an almost 12,000km trip home, the 13-year-old returned to school on Thursday, where a hero’s welcome was waiting.

“It was a really great feeling that everyone – my friends and teachers – wished me,” he said.

He has now got his eyes on the 2027 competition and is hoping to become the first youth champion to defend their title.