International Math Olympiad 2014 results are in! (India fails again)

[Wagner]

#1 People's Republic of China
#2 United States of America
#3 Taiwan
#4 Russian Federation
#5 Japan
#6 Ukraine
#7 Republic of Korea
#8 Singapore
#9 Canada
#10 Vietnam
#11 Australia / Romania
#13 Netherlands
#14 Democratic People's Republic of Korea
#15 Hungary
#16 Germany
#17 Turkey
#18 Hong Kong / Israel
#20 United Kingdom
#21 Islamic Republic of Iran / Thailand
#23 Kazakhstan / Malaysia / Serbia
#26 Italy / Mexico / Poland
#29 Croatia / Indonesia / Peru
#32 Czech Republic
#33 Portugal
#34 Belarus / Brazil / Slovakia
#37 Bulgaria
#38 Switzerland
#39 Armenia / India
#41 Greece
#42 Lithuania
#43 Saudi Arabia
#44 Mongolia
#45 France / Philippines
#47 Georgia
#48 Republic of Moldova / Spain
#50 Tajikistan
#51 Austria / Bosnia and Herzegovina
#53 Bangladesh
#54 Colombia / Sri Lanka
#56 Argentina
#57 Sweden
#58 Slovenia
#59 Belgium
#60 New Zealand
#61 Azerbaijan
#62 Macau
#63 Costa Rica
#64 Ireland / South Africa
#66 Latvia
#67 Denmark / The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia
#69 Norway
#70 Finland
#71 Paraguay
#72 Cyprus / Syria
#74 Estonia
#75 Pakistan
#76 Iceland
#77 Albania
#78 Morocco
#79 Luxembourg
#80 Tunisia
#81 Chile
#82 Nigeria / Trinidad and Tobago
#84 Uruguay
#85 Kyrgyzstan
#86 Venezuela
#87 Liechtenstein
#88 Montenegro
#89 Burkina Faso / Ecuador
#91 Puerto Rico
#92 Cuba
#93 Panama
#94 Bolivia / Uganda / Zimbabwe
#97 Ivory Coast
#98 Benin
#99 Tanzania
#100 Gambia
#101 Ghana

You would think that with a population of 1 billion+ people, India would be able to assemble a formidable math team that could place higher than 39. Yes, 39. Right next to Armenia.

Instead not only does India get slaughtered by China, the Koreas, Japan, Vietnam, even tiny Singapore and Hong Kong, but it's also consistently outperformed by much smaller European countries like Hungary, Romania, and Serbia. Even a modest-sized Third World country like Peru has a better IMO track record in recent years than India.

Where are all these Indian mathematical geniuses we hear so much about?

 

[tranquilium]

Here are the results from 1959 to 2014:

International Mathematical Olympiad

Comparing to 2013 results:
China maintained at the top spot.
USA moved up one place from 3rd place to 2nd place.
Taiwan is doing well, moving from 8th place to 3rd.
Russia has 4th place for the fourth year in a row.
Japan also did well, moving from 11th place to 5th.
Ukraine is doing pretty well this year. Moving from 16 to 6 place.
South Korea dropped from 2nd place to 7th place.
Singapore dropped from 6th place to 8th place.
Canada moved up from 11th place to 9th place.
Vietnam dropped from 7th place to 10th place.

Out of last year's top 10 countries:
North Korea dropped from 5th to 14th
UK dropped from 9th to 20th
Iran dropped from 10th to 21st.

Out of the South Asia countries:
India dropped from 29th to 39th
Sri Lanka moved up from 56th to 54th
Bangladesh moved up from 61th to 53
Pakistan moved up from 79th to 75th

 

[IsaacNewton]

The participants in USA team this year were:

Joshua Brakensiek
Allen Liu
Yang Liu
Sammy Luo
Mark Selke
James Tao

For Canada's team

Michael Chow
Caleb Ji
Antonio Molina Lovett
Zhuo Qun Song
Kevin Sun
Alexander Whatley

Math Olympiad questions are tough. I'm a graduate student of Mathematics and I seriously struggle solving most of the problems, makes me feel stupid losing at math against teenagers.

Also not surprising is the number of Chinese students in the North American team. In USA, Chinese people make up 1% of the population but always take top spot in academia. In my graduate department, almost all the foreign students are from China, and they put all the American students to shame with their work ethic and humility.

Non Asian American really need to step up their math skill in this era of technology. Last semester, I had to teach remedial math, and half my class had to use their smartphone to calculate "3 x 30"

http://www.imo-official.org/participant_r.aspx?id=25027

[URL='http://www.imo-official.org/participant_r.aspx?id=24924']
[/URL]

 

[StarCraft_ZT]

 

[Wagner]

Here are the results from 1959 to 2014:

Comparing to 2013 results:
China maintained at the top spot.
USA moved up one place from 3rd place to 2nd place.
Taiwan is doing well, moving from 8th place to 3rd.
Russia has 4th place for the fourth year in a row.
Japan also did well, moving from 11th place to 5th.
Ukraine is doing pretty well this year. Moving from 16 to 6 place.
South Korea dropped from 2nd place to 7th place.
Singapore dropped from 6th place to 8th place.
Canada moved up from 11th place to 9th place.
Vietnam dropped from 7th place to 10th place.

Out of last year's top 10 countries:
North Korea dropped from 5th to 14th
UK dropped from 9th to 20th
Iran dropped from 10th to 21st.

Out of the South Asia countries:
India dropped from 29th to 39th
Sri Lanka moved up from 56th to 54th
Bangladesh moved up from 61th to 53
Pakistan moved up from 79th to 75th

There was a very tricky Problem 5 this year which upset some of the usual rankings.

One kid from the North Korean team didn't win any medal, only an Honorable Mention. I hope nothing bad happens to him once he returns home.

 

[Foot12]

The funny thing is that India, Greece and Iran which produced some of the greatest mathematicians of the ancient
and medieval world and which laid the foundation for modern mathematics have failed in this year.

 

[proka89]

Not a bad place for Serbia, we won 6 medals, one gold, tree silver and two bronze medals.

 

[Wagner]

Not a bad place for Serbia, we won 6 medals, one gold, tree silver and two bronze medals.

The point spreads for countries ranked between #15 and 30 are usually pretty tight. Look at the large number of ties for countries between 20 and 30 this year. The differences in overall performance for teams in that range are often quite minor.

For a competition like this, placing anywhere in the Top 30 is pretty damn good, especially if you don't have a gargantuan population at your disposal.

 

[Devdas]

You do realize that in some of these countries, including China and the US, classes are given exclusively for these olympiads? In India, few even know such an olympiad exists. As a math student myself, I know how many years of preparation go into them - preparation virtually no Indians put in.
Math olympiad training may not add up[2]|chinadaily.com.cn
Indians are caught up in other fields that they clearly dominate in:
Alumni | MIT EECS
However, some Indians do take an interest and do very well:
Ravi Vakil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ravi Vakil was the top scorer in the Putnam all four years of college.

 

[Devdas]

The point spreads for countries ranked between #15 and 30 are usually pretty tight. Look at the large number of ties for countries between 20 and 30 this year. The differences in overall performance for teams in that range are often quite minor.

For a competition like this, placing anywhere in the Top 30 is pretty damn good, especially if you don't have a gargantuan population at your disposal.

Having a large population at your disposal is meaningless for olympiads if the vast majority of it lives in villages, lacking even basic education. You clearly have some personal issues with Indians, though, so I shouldn't bother.

 

[karan21]

lol no kid in India even cares about Olympids. Here kids are busy preparing for their entrance exams.

 

[Wagner]

You do realize that in some of these countries, including China and the US, classes are given exclusively for these olympiads? In India, few even know such an olympiad exists. As a math student myself, I know how many years of preparation go into them - preparation virtually no Indians put in.

Nonsense, plenty of Indians know about the IMO. Here is a Quora post written by an Indian remarking on the consistently mediocre IMO performance of India:

First things first, a few points for the enraged patriots who are about to jump to the nation's defence with the usual arguments:

1. IMO matters. The results of the IMO matter. They are a "clear-cut" and "unquestionable" indication of the mathematical prowess of a nation. The only one? Obviously not. But a really significant one, one that is the result of a fair process? Without a doubt. Lose the snobbish excuse of saying "IMO means nothing. It doesn't matter, hence we don't care. If it mattered and we were serious, we would win it". Sour grapes much.

Case in point: Just like the JEE is a very respectable benchmark for a person's intelligence and problem solving aptitude in spite of all the arguments against it, the IMO is a very respectable benchmark for a nation's mathematical prowess (and also the individuals' talent) for similar reason.

2. People in India very well know about the IMO. More specifically, students at top tier engineering institutions like IITs, BITS, NITs and the likes definitely know about the IMO. The lack of knowledge about the IMO that is often cited may be prevalent amongst students of other disciplines, but definitely not in ANY half-decent engineering/science college in India.

3. IPhO,IChO etc. are not the focus of this question (Although China, USA, Russia and Japan are beating us overwhelmingly there as well). This question focuses on the IMO only. So please do not cite India's performances in any other olympiad.

Other than the two questions in the title itself, I wonder how is it that smaller nations like South Korea, Romania, North Korea (yes, NK),Thailand, Vietnam have much better performances than India at the IMO?

I have always believed that we Indians are the best in Mathematics since we have the inventor of Zero in our ancestry, and then the JEE (which is touted as the toughest exam in the world, not the IMO) - What happened at the IMO? Are we discriminated against because of our skin color?

As I said, over 1 billion people and they can't find 6 students talented enough to dominate the IMO? We are told over and over again how brilliant Indians supposedly are. I don't deny that there are some smart Indians. I just think that overall Indians are much less impressive than they claim. You can look at India's PISA scores for further proof.

 

[Devdas]

Nonsense, plenty of Indians know about the IMO. Here is a Quora post written by an Indian remarking on the consistently mediocre IMO performance of India:



As I said, over 1 billion people and they can't find 6 students talented enough to dominate the IMO? We are told over and over again how brilliant Indians supposedly are. I don't deny that there are some smart Indians. I just think that overall Indians are much less impressive than they claim. You can look at India's PISA scores for further proof.

Uh, as I said, there's a difference between finding students talented enough and finding students who have prepared specifically for such an olympiad almost their entire lives, as happens in China and the US.

 

[Wagner]

Uh, as I said, there's a difference between finding students talented enough and finding students who have prepared specifically for such an olympiad almost their entire lives, as happens in China and the US.

But tiny countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Romania, and Hungary can?

 

[terranMarine]

But tiny countries like Singapore, Hong Kong, Romania, and Hungary can?

HK a country?