The U.S. Wins International Math Olympiad For the Second Year in a Row

July 17, 2016

The world’s brightest high school minds in Mathematics recently competed in Hong Kong with Americans again successfully demolishing its stereotype of being much worse than others at numbers.

For the second year in a row, a United States high school team has emerged as the top winner in the International Math Olympiad by accumulating the most points from the six problems assigned in 4.5-hour windows during the two-day competition.

Considered as the most prestigious problem-solving competition in the world, the 57th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) was held from 6 – 16 July 2016 in Hong Kong. Over 100 countries participated in the event hosted by the International Mathematical Olympiad Hong Kong Committee Limited with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

The six-person US team defeated their competition from other countries, including Mathematics powerhouse teams from South Korea, which landed second place and China which grabbed the third place.

US team coach and Carnegie Mellon professor Po-Shen Loh said that their second consecutive win “serves as a recognition for the the high standard of mathematical creativity and problem-solving capabilities we have in our country.”

Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Executive Director Michael Pearson echoed the same sentiment: “We have been running the U.S. Olympiad training program with a focus on the long-term development of our country’s talent, and it’s great to see that reflected in the continued team success a second year in a row,” he said.

The winning team, which was accompanied by Loh and and deputy coach Razvan Gelca, consists of Ankan Bhattacharya, Michael Kural, Allen Liu, Junyao Peng, Ashwin Sah, and Yuan Yao. All members got gold medals for their individual scores with Liu and Yao each earning perfect test scores.

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