[cmath] ALL CANADIAN STUDENTS WIN MEDALS AT THE 49TH INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIAD IN MADRID, SPAIN

[Graham Wright]

ALL CANADIAN STUDENTS WIN MEDALS AT THE 49TH INTERNATIONAL 
MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIAD IN MADRID, SPAIN

OTTAWA, Ontario - In competition with students from 96 other 
countries, Canadian high school students have done extremely well with 
all six students winning medals, two silver and four bronze, at the 
49th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) in Madrid, Spain, from 
July 10 to July 22, 2008.

The six students who competed for Canada were: Yan (Cynthia) Li, Dr. 
Norman Bethune Collegiate Institute, Scarborough, Ontario; Alexander 
Remorov, William Lyon Mackenzie Collegiate Institute, North York, 
Ontario; Jonathan Schneider, University of Toronto Schools, Toronto, 
Ontario; XiaoLin (Danny) Shi, Sir Winston Churchill High School, 
Calgary, Alberta; Chen Sun, A.B. Lucas Secondary School, London, 
Ontario; and Chengyue (Jarno) Sun, Western Canada High School, 
Calgary, Alberta.

The team was accompanied by the Team Leader Dr. Felix Recio, Senior 
Lecturer, University of Toronto; the Deputy Team Leader, Mr. Yufei 
Zhao, a Canadian IMO gold medalist in 2005 and an undergraduate 
student at Massachusetts Institute of Technology; and the Deputy 
Leader Observer, Ms. Lindsey Shorser, a graduate student and lecturer, 
University of Toronto.

At the Closing Ceremony on July 21st, Silver Medals were awarded to 
Yan (Cynthia) Li and Jonathan Schneider, and Bronze Medals to 
Alexander Remorov, XiaoLin (Danny) Shi, Chen Sun and Chengyue (Jarno) 
Sun.

"The Canadian team performed spectacularly with everyone bringing home 
a medal.  The leaders are very proud of their achievements" said Felix 
Recio.

"The IMO is the world championship high school mathematics 
competition. The problems were difficult and the talent and creativity 
displayed by the Canadian team has been outstanding.  We are very 
pleased to see their hard work has been rewarded." said Dr. Graham 
Wright, Executive Director of the Canadian Mathematical Society (CMS), 
the organization responsible for the selection and training of 
Canada's IMO team.

Although students compete individually, country rankings are obtained 
by adding the team scores. The maximum score for each student is 42 
and for a team of six students the maximum is 252. The Canadian team 
placed 22nd out of 97 competing countries with a score of 135.

Since 1981, Canadian students have received a total of 16 gold, 37 
silver, and 65 bronze medals. The six members of the Canadian IMO team 
were selected from among more than 200,000 students who participated 
in local, provincial and national mathematics contests. Prior to 
leaving for the 49th IMO, the team trained at Wilfrid Laurier 
University from June 27th to July 9th.

The 2008 IMO contest was set by an international jury of 
mathematicians, one from each country, and was written on Wednesday 
July 16th and Thursday July 17th. On each day of the contest, three 
questions had to be solved within a time limit of four and a half 
hours. Team members must be less than 20 years old when they write the 
IMO.


The top 10 teams and their scores are: China (217); Russia (199); USA 
(190); South Korea (188); Iran (181); Thailand (175); North Korea 
(173); Turkey (170); Taiwan (168); and Hungary (165).

The team will be returning to Canada today (July 22nd), in Toronto and 
Calgary. For further details contact the Canadian Mathematical 
Society.

In addition to the Canadian Mathematical Society, sponsors of the 2008 
Canadian IMO team include: the Imperial Oil Foundation; Sun Life 
Financial; NSERC PromoScience; the Samuel Beatty Fund; Maplesoft; the 
Ontario Ministry of Education; Alberta Learning; Manitoba Education, 
Citizenship and Youth; Nova Scotia Department of Education; the 
Newfoundland and Labrador Ministry of Education; the Northwest 
Territories Ministry of Education; the Saskatchewan Ministry of 
Education; Centre de recherches mathématiques; the Fields Institute; 
the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences; the Department of 
Mathematics and Statistics, University of Calgary; the Department of 
Mathematics and Statistics, University of New Brunswick at 
Fredericton; the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, University 
of Ottawa; the Department of Mathematics, University of Toronto; the 
Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing, University of 
Waterloo; the Department of Mathematics, Wilfrid Laurier University; 
and the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, York University.

The 50th International Mathematical Olympiad will take place in 
Bremen, Germany, in July 2009.

For more information, contact:

Dr. Graham P. Wright
Executive Director
Canadian Mathematical Society
613-562-5702 (CMS Office)
director at cms.math.ca

www.cms.math.ca/Competitions/