Six Greek high school students win medals at International Mathematical Olympiad

Greek high school students won a confident victory at the 65th International Mathematical Olympiad in Bath.

The event took place from July 11 to 22, and the boys returned with one gold, two silver and three bronze medals. The Hellenic Mathematical Society reported:

“The high achievements of the last few years in international competitions continued this year, as all students demonstrated their skills in difficult and challenging competitions.”

IMO is the World Championship in Mathematics for high school students, which is held in a different country each year. Currently, more than one hundred countries from five continents participate in it.

This year according to IMO website, 108 countries and 609 schoolchildren, 81 of whom were girls, took part in the Olympiad. And the first Mathematical Olympiad, which changes its location every year, was held in 1959 in Romania, and 7 countries took part in it.

The content of the competition at the International Mathematical Olympiad is varied: from very complex problems in algebra and precalculus to problems in areas of mathematics that are not studied in middle or high school, and often not even in universities: projective and complex geometry, functional equations, combinatorics and sound number theory, which requires extensive knowledge of theorems.

The six Greek winners were selected in a national mathematics competition held by the Hellenic Mathematical Society since 1934. This year, 12,000 participants from high schools across the country took part in the competition. The winning team represented the following schools in Greece:

• Moraitis (1 gold);
• Elliniki Paideia and 3rd High School of Pyrgos in Peloponnese (2 silver);
• Anavrita, Experimental School of the University of Thessaloniki, Kanitos High School in Euboea (3 bronze medals).

The group was led by HMS President and Honorary Professor of the National Technical University of Athens (Polytechnio) Anargyros Fellouris and Associate Professor of the University of Crete Silouanos Brasitikos. Congratulating the students and thanking the Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs for their contribution to their victory, the society stated:

“The Hellenic Mathematical Society trains and supports the efforts of these students, always on a voluntary basis, in the context of its goal of improving mathematical education and training in Greece.”

It is worth noting that Greek schoolchildren have achieved excellent results at the International Mathematical Olympiad not only this year. In 2022, they won five medals – two silver and three bronze. In 2019, three Greek university students won all the medals, one gold and two silver. In 2018, at the 25th IMC (International Mathematical Competition) student competition, George Kotsovolis, a student of the Faculty of Mathematics at the University of Athens, won the gold medal.

In ancient times, the Greeks played an important role in the development of mathematics. Although most modern Greek mathematicians are not as famous as Pythagoras, Archimedes, or Euclid, their contributions to mathematics, notes GreekReporter, significant.

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