Israeli high school students won six medals at the 62nd International Math Olympiad (IMO) in St. Petersburg, Russia.
Israel’s national team finished in seventh place, its best ranking to date, among all countries involved in the two-day competition this month and also took home three gold medals for the first time.
Yahel Manor from the Leo Baeck School in Haifa, Yair Shoham from the Ben Gurion High School in Ness Ziona and Almog Wald from Ahad Ha’am High School in Petach Tikvah won gold medals. Omri Zemer from Ironi Alef High School in Modi’in and Shahar Friedman from De Shalit High School in Rehovot won silver, while Dror Fried from Ironi Dalet High School in Tel Aviv won bronze.
The IMO has been held since 1959. Israel competed for the first time in 1979, finishing in the top 10.
The competition consists of six questions related to four categories: algebra, geometry, combinatorics and number theory. Participants receive three questions a day and are given four-and-a-half hours to answer them.
The student team that participated in the Math Olympiad was trained at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, led by the academic director Professor Avraham Iisenbod; head coach Lev Radziilovsky; head of the delegation Dan Carmon; and a team of coaches, including Daniel Kenner, Sasha Tolsnikov and Guy Kapon.
