Polish national team at the IMO in Bath, Mateusz Wawrzyniak second from right (photo: Jessica Wang)

Mateusz Wawrzyniak, a student at the Academic High School of the Wrocław Tech, became a silver medallist in the International Mathematical Olympiad. The competition took place in the British city of Bath.

The 65th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) attracted 609 participants from 109 countries around the world. Poland was also represented, and one of the six participants was Mateusz Wawrzyniak from our high school. All thanks to the excellent result he achieved in the national final of the Mathematical Olympiad in April. Scoring 24 points, he came third in the country (ex aequo with 11 others). This allowed him to qualify for the competition in Bath.

Mateusz Wawrzyniak, representing our academic high school, scored 26 points over the two days of competition, which allowed him to win the silver medal. As a team, Poland finished ninth.

- I always fight for the highest goals, so right after the results were announced I was a bit disappointed, because I was really close to gold. In retrospect, however, I think the silver medal is a really big achievement,' says Mateusz Wawrzyniak.

The organisers traditionally prepared six tasks for the participants (three for each day). They had 270 minutes to solve them each time. Seven points could be obtained for each correctly solved task, i.e. a total of 42 points were to be won. According to the regulations of the Olympiad, gold medals were awarded to those who scored a minimum of 29 points, silver medals to those who scored a minimum of 22 points and bronze medals were awarded from 16 points.

- ‘It's usually the case that two tasks are really difficult and the so-called problem 6 is usually the most problematic,’ - says the PWr high school student, adding that this year it was an unconventional functional equation with a long solution. - This is a type of task that is not found in the Polish Olympiad. I managed to score one point for it!

The competition was won by Haoji Shi of China. In the team classification, the US team was the best..