The International Mathematical Olympiad is a world championship maths competition for pre-university students and the oldest of the International Science Olympiads, and the most prestigious maths competition in the world. It has been held annually in different countries since the first event in 1959 in Romania, except for 1980. Today, the competition has over 100 participating countries. Each country sends a team of up to six students, with one team leader, one deputy leader, and observers in addition.
Countries choose their teams using different qualification tests. In the UK, the best students from the British Mathematical Olympiad can do advanced training camps in Cambridge and Oundle (Northamptonshire) to try and get onto the team. Participants must be under 20 years old, and have no tertiary education.
What is the maths like?
The competition consists of 6 problems, each worth 7 points, held over two consecutive days with 3 problems each. Students are given four and a half hours to solve each problem. The problems are taken from various fields of secondary school mathematics, including very difficult algebra and pre-calculus to branches of mathematics not conventionally covered at secondary level like projective and complex geometry, functional equations, combinatorics and well-grounded number theory, which require extensive knowledge of theorems. Calculus is allowed in solutions but never required, as the questions in the Olympiad have a principle of being able to be understood with basic mathematics, even if the solutions are more difficult.
Who has competed? Where has the IMO been held?
The competition was originally founded for eastern European countries in the Warsaw Pact, and seven countries competed in the first Olympiad in Romania — Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania and the Soviet Union. Its eastern origin is the reason the first IMOs were held in eastern Europe, before it spread gradually to other nations. The 1970 edition was held in London, a sign of the détente in the Cold War. Since then, it has been held in over 30 countries, and over 100 from 5 different continents have participated.