Asian American teens lead US to international math olympiad victory

China narrowly lost to the U.S. at the 65th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) held in Bath, United Kingdom, on Monday. The U.S. team, composed of high school students from Connecticut, Illinois, Florida, New Jersey and California, finished the competition with a score of 192, just two points higher than China’s 190.

It’s still a win: Even though China lost its sixth consecutive IMO, one of its members, 16-year-old Shi Haojia, won a gold medal in the individual rankings after receiving a perfect score on all six problems in the competition. Shi, a second-year student from Zhejiang province, was reportedly the only student to achieve a perfect score out of the 609 high school students from 108 countries who participated. He is the fourth Chinese competitor to achieve this record, following math genius Wei Dongyi. Meanwhile, the U.S. team’s Alexander Wang, 16, from New Jersey, and Jessica Wan, 18, from Florida, placed third and fifth, respectively, in the individual rankings.
The competition: First held in Romania in 1959, around 300,000 K-12 students from 6,000 schools and learning centers are chosen each year to compete at the world’s premiere math competition. Since joining the competition in 1985, China has secured first place a total of 24 times, while the U.S. has achieved first place nine times since joining the IMO in 1974.

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