Romania’s Olympic team won one gold, one silver and two bronze medals at the 2018 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) organized in Cluj-Napoca, ranking 33rd. This is Romania’s worst result ever at this competition.

The USA team ranked first, with five gold and one silver medals. Russia came next while China ranked third. The results are available here.

The Romanian student who won gold is Ioan-Andrei Nicolae. Meanwhile, the silver medal was won by Ciprian-Mircea Bonciocat while the bronze went to Edis Memis and Mihnea-Gabriel Doica. Two other Romanian students received honourable mentions, namely Antonie Ciocan and Radu-Alexandru Iacob.

Over 600 students from more than 100 countries participated in the Math Olympiad, including Hafez al-Assad, the son of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad. He had the weakest result in his country's team, gaining only 3 points.

The International Math Olympiad was launched in Romania in 1959 at the initiative of Romanian professor Tiberiu Roman, Secretary General of the Society of Mathematical Sciences. The first two editions took place in Brasov and Sinaia, gathering exclusively countries from the former communist bloc. The first Western country was allowed to participate in the competition in 1969, with more Western states becoming members of the International Math Olympiad after 1970.

Romania holds the record for organizing the competition, being host in 1969, 1979, 1999 and 2018. It even got the first place a few times.

The 2019 edition of the International Math Olympiad will be organized in the UK.

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Irina Marica, irina.marica@romania-insider.com

(photo source: Emil Boc on Facebook)