August - 2015 - issue > In Focus

Shyam Narayanan and Yang Liu Patil help U.S. bag the Math Olympiad

SI Team

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Forward

Shyam Narayanan, 17 and Yang Liu Patil, 18 U.S. to bag the prestigious International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) after two decades. The two students were part of the six member team which bagged the prestigious award after 21 years for the U.S. Apart from Patil and Narayanan, Ryan Alweiss, Allen Liu and David Stoner were the other three members to have won gold medals. Micheal Kural, the sixth member of the team missed out on gold by one point and hence had to settle for silver. U.S. defeated China by four points with a score line of 185-181 respectively. South Korea secured the third place.
On receiving the news, the White House tweeted, "Go Team USA! America took first place in the International Mathematical Olympiad for the first time since 1994”. USA’s head coach, Po-Shen Loh responded by saying it’s a moment of ‘national pride’. According to him, the US has been very consistent over the past five years securing the third or the second position. But the first rank had always eluded the nation up till now. Loh also highlighted that China has an upper hand because of the population advantage which is four times that of the U.S.
IMO is meant for high school students and is the world championship mathematics competition which is held annually in a different country. IMO was first held in Romania in 1959 following the participation of seven countries.