IMO 2011

I've had the opportunity to participate at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Amsterdam. The competition is for the high school students, but I was not a contestant - I served as a team guide, which is to say that I had to look after for team members of one team (usually six people), make sure that they enjoy the event and that nothing bad happens to them.

I was a guide for Slovakia and later on also for the Czech Republic (since the Czech guide had to leave earlier due to an unexpected event). Just as a note: there were something over 1000 people involved, of which cca 550 contestants.

As for the contest itself, there were 6 problems to solve (3 for one contest day, the contestans had 4.5 hours to solve it). The easier one were...doable for me (I must admit that I have not time yet to work them out completely, however I see how to tackle them and am confident they would yield themselves after some time). The hard problems were hard and as for the geometry, I read the text of the assignment and gave up :-) It should be noted that most contestants don't solve most of the problems (to get a silver medal, you had to completely solve two of the problems and a tiny little bit of a third one). What is amazing - that the contestants are able to tackle in a short time the problems where I get some idea and chance only because of the experience gained by four years of (very succesful) study of mathematics. How can this be possible? Let's face it - some of the contestants are simply genial. On the other hand, others (while also very clever) have already dedicated many years of their life to studying mathematics (which means, at the high school level: solving all the mail seminars, atteding all the mathematics contests for the secondary school students and probably also attending a high school with specialization in mathematics and physics).

I'm very much led by the latter students to contemplate the role of the "fate" in your life. Indeed, consider a person who dedicates herself since her 12 to mathematics (computer science/physics/chemistry/....) in such a way. I cannot resist a comparison to the Middle Ages monks who dedicated their whole life to serve the god (think also about other similarities in this comparison). As a humble and (rather) recently intiated servant of Mathematics, I cannot but feel that my level of piety can never reach that of the monks - and, actually, it might not be appropriate for me, a mere mortal, to make attempts in this direction!

By the way, it's noteworthy that lands of Latin America and Africa fared worse than those of North America, Europe and (especially) Asia. The next year, IMO is hosted by Argentina, so perhaps the home environment will help the South American countries? It would be nice if the travel costs were reimbursed also the next year - in that case, you surely see me as a guide in Argentina (but I guess the reimbursement will of course not take place...)

As is probably obvious from the above, it was amazing for me to get into contact with the contestants; and to see what they could do. In my group (of 12 people), there were 3 people going to Cambridge (one knew it for sure, the other two not yet). A person from another group who I met when accompanying him to Schiphol since he had to leave earlier in order to attend IIO. He was admitted to MIT (and a plenty of other prestigious schools, by the way; on the other hand, some other did not admit him...) He professed that he had wanted to go to MIT since his very youth - oh my, even sooner than I had the slightest idea that some MIT even existed! He had a few medals from both IMO and IIO...

Among the contestants, Lisa Sauermann certainly deserves a special mention. She has won her fourth gold IMO medal this year and also holds another silver one which makes her the most succesful IMO contestant so far. To put it into a "gender context" girls made 57 out of 564 participants of this year's IMO. By the way, she goes on to study Math at University of Bonn - the famous Math department in Germany.

In the free days (after the contest, when the team leaders were busy with correcting the solutions), excursions were organized for the contestants (and the guides followed their group) - our group visited Den Haag (and Escher museum) and sailed on Gouwenzee near the "typical Dutch" village of Vollendam. And yet another day, we visited the center of Amsterdam (there was too little time to see everything worthwhile, but it was nice nevertheless). Also, on one of the contest day, guides and team leaders could visit a museum, I chose the Rijksmuseum (perhaps I should be ashamed of that, but my first year in the Netherlands was spent differently than visiting museums, so this was my first visit there).

I was very happy with my team(s) - I had a great fun with them. On the other hand, looking after them was not always easy. It's difficult to gain respect of 18 and 19 years old (not all of them were, but some yes) when you are just a few years older and when you actually look younger than they do...There was a person constantly getting lost and another one who had a perverse affection in climbing to dangerous places (think of roofs of tall buildings, three meters high statues, trees, edges of cliffs...).

I made a lot of new contacts and I am looking forward to the opportunities of the future. On the other hand, I must admit that it is quite discouraging to see how big the role of connections is (Dutch people call it "via via"). By the way, some 80% percent of Dutch graduates reportedly get their job either after running an internship or "via via". The "zesjescultuur" at the Dutch schools is being repeatedly criticized, but why should students strive to get good grades if, in order to get a good job, it is much more effective and time efficient to "build network" instead of learning?

We were accomodated in a four star hotel - good food (I ate too much of it probably :-) We had several coffee machines at our service - and I learned how to make a good use of them which help me greatly not to fall during the exhausting days.