A Ukrainian team of high school students placed 11th among 104 countries at this year’s International Mathematical Olympiad, winning two gold, three silver and one bronze medal in Thailand.
Taking place on July 4-16, the IMO is a world championship among 9th-11th grade students that has been held since 1959. Each competing team worked on three math problems in the first and second round each lasting 4.5 hours. While it may not sound a lot, the degree of difficulty varies from pre-calculus math to other branches not conventionally covered in school.
Natalia Khotiayintseva of Kyiv-Pechersk lyceum №171, and Denys Smirnov of the Kharkiv Physics and Mathematics Lyceum, received gold medals. Silver medals went to 11th grade student Sofia Dubovaya of the Kharkiv Physics and Mathematics Lyceum, Anastasiya Alekhina, of Kyiv-Pechersk lyceum №171, and 9th-grade participant Anton Trygub. Ukraine’s sole bronze medal went to Dinh Thanhg Phong, also a student at the Kharkiv Physics and Mathematics Lyceum.
“Unfortunately, all our hard work during the year is evaluated based on the results of these six students. If something went wrong, people would say that we fail. The work with a thousand students, who take part in our math competitions, cannot simply be replaced by the results of these students,” said team leader Bogdan Rublev, who holds a doctorate degree in physical and mathematical sciences.
Ukraine’s team prepared for the math contest amid a year of brutal war instigated by Russia and economic collapse. It has sent students to the IMO since 1993 and became the best European team at this year’s competition.
“We were preparing and practicing almost without breaks over the last two months,” Khotiayintseva said. “First, we had workshops with lecturers, then with the former participants, and our regular teachers. We came to Thailand one week in advance for acclimatization, and I wasn’t doing math at all.”
Apart from promoting mathematics, the purpose of the competition is to foster the exchange culture, backgrounds, traditions and customs among the diverse group of participants.
One factor enhancing the interest in the Ukrainian team was that there were three girls. Usually the majority of participants are boys.
“When we went on the stage to receive our medals dressed in Ukrainian national costumes, all the boys were clapping crazy. They all were surprised that Ukraine has intelligent good-looking young women” Khotiayintseva said.
They young women, Khotiayintseva, Dubovaya and Alekhina, performed the best having also won the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad 2015 in Belarus.
Despite their achievements, the team says that they could have done better. Gold medal winner Smirnov said: “If I followed the traditions of solving the easy problems first, my results would be worse. Everyone should work harder when training, don’t be lazy and never give up.”
Kyivstar, a Ukrainian communication operator providing communications and data services, supported this year’s IMO team through an education program talented youth. Kyivstar supported workshops before the Olympiad, and their early trip to Thailand that allowed them to adopt.
“What I like about these students is that they are not simply math oriented, but very open,” said Alekhina’s mother Iryna Alekhina. “I enjoy being around them. They are worth being supported and believed in. They told us (parents), it won’t matter what kind of medals we get, it is such an incredible event.”
In the end the team only competes with itself. “One should compete not with the other students, but with the problems,” said Trygub.
Kyiv Post staff writer Valeriya Golovina can be reached at [email protected].
