July 18, 2014

Official results of the 55th International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), held July 3-13 in Cape Town, South Africa, show the United States in second place, behind China. Taiwan (3), Russia (4), and Japan (5) round out the top five. Complete rankings of the more than 100 countries that participated are available here.

United States team members Allen Liu (Penfield Senior High School, Penfield, New York), Yang Liu (Ladue Horton Watkins High School, St. Louis, Missouri), Sammy Luo (North Carolina School of Science and Math, Durham, North Carolina), Mark Sellke (William Henry Harrison High School, West Lafayette, Indiana), and James Tao (Illinois Math and Science Academy, Aurora, Illinois) took home gold medals, while Joshua Brakensiek (home school, Arizona College Prep-Erie, Chandler, Arizona) earned silver. Individual statistics for the United States team and overall individual rankings are available.

The oldest and largest scientific Olympiad, the IMO is a rigorous two-day math competition held each summer in a different location around the globe. Each day participants take a 4.5-hour, three-question exam featuring deceptively simple-looking problems that in fact require considerable ingenuity to solve. Read more.

Download a pdf of this year's problems.