By Anton Ivanov
The National College in the Romanian city of Iaşi recently hosted a Maths Olympiad, welcoming teams from around the world. The Belarusian representatives included pupils from Minsk’s gymnasium #41: Maxim Bezrukov (11th grade), Nikita Kondratenok (9th grade) and Darya Tikach (10th grade). Anton Shemyakov and Sergey Shemyakov (10th grade) and Andrey Shlyakhov (11th grade), from the Lyceum of the Belarusian State University, also joined the team. Their supervisors were Maxim Vaskovsky, a senior lecturer with the Department of Applied Mathematics and Informatics of the BSU, and his assistant, Yevgeny Zhibrik.
The team competition saw pupils compete to solve mathematical tasks, presenting and defending their solutions competently and convincingly. Rounds also involved questioning and reviewing the other teams’ solutions.
This year, 13 teams from 7 countries fought for victory: Belarus, Bulgaria, Germany, Russia, Romania, France and China. Those from Romania, Belarus, Germany and France reached the final, with only 0.4 points separating first from seventh place.
Although the Belarusian team shared third place with one of the teams from France, its performance can be considered a success, due to three of the six members being from the 10th grade and one from the 9th.
Two universities organised the event: the University of Paris-Sud (France) and the Belarusian State University. The next tournament is to take place in Bremen, Germany. In fact, our Belarusian team has claimed a winning position in the last five international tournaments: three first places and two third.
