There is happy and heartening news amid the coronavirus pandemic. Young Bangladeshis have won one silver and 5 bronze medals at the recently held International Math Olympiad. This is the first time in the annual math contest that all the Bangladeshi contestants brought home so many medals together. This is a special achievement.
Other than all the contestants winning medals, the team this time won the highest combined marks for Bangladesh. The team scored 118 out of 252 marks (each taking a test of 42 marks). Bangladesh ranked 38 among 197 countries participating in the Olympiad. Interestingly, Bangladesh ranked at 26 in 2017, with a lower total score.
The results appeared on the International Math Olympiad (IMO) website on Sunday. This was the 61st IMO. The IMO this year was supposed to be held at St Petersburg in Russia, but that was not possible because of coronavirus.
The IMO organisers for the first time ever arranged the competition virtually. The Olympiad committee selected the training room of the Prothom Alo office as the exam centre for the event in Bangladesh.
The International Math Olympiad exams were held online on 21 and 22 September. The exams were monitored from Russia.
Student of Dhaka Residential Model College, Ahmed Ittihad, won the silver medal for Bangladesh. He missed the gold by just two marks. His score was 29. Speaking to Prothom Alo on Sunday, he said, “This achievement is not mine alone, but of everyone involved in the Math Olympiad. And I am thrilled.”
Earlier, in 2018 Bangladesh won the Gold in the International Math Olympiad. Last year, at the IOM held in England, Bangladesh only managed to bring home a bronze.
The five bronze medal winners of Bangladesh this time are M Ahsan-Al-Mahir (20 marks) of SOS Hermann Gmeiner College, Mohammed Maruf Hasan ( 19 marks) of Mymensingh’s Ananda Mohan College, Adnan Sadiq (18 marks) of Kushtia Zila School, Raiyan Jamil (17 marks) of Notre Dame College, and Soumitra Das (16 marks) of Faridpur’s Government Rajendra College.
The five boys are excited at bringing this honour to the country. Speaking to Prothom Alo on Sunday night, they said it would have been even better if they could have scored a bit higher. They hoped that Bangladesh would do even better in the next Olympiad.
The Bangladesh math team’s coach Mahbub Majumdar said, “I am happy with their high scores. This is a result of their hard work and perseverance.”
Though Bangladesh did not win the gold this time, it tops the list among South Asian countries participating in the IMO. Sri Lanka ranked at 61, Pakistan at 82 and Nepal at 102. India did not participate this time.
The Bangladesh Olympiad Committee was founded in 2003 under the leadership of the recently demised national professor Jamilur Reza Chowdhury. The objective of the committee was to develop the mathematical skills of Bangladesh students and to send representatives for Bangladesh to contest in the International Math Olympiad.
In 2004, Dutch-Bangla Bank joined the initiative as a sponsor. Prothom Alo took responsibility of the Math Olympiad management in Bangladesh. And from 2004, the Dutch-Bangla Bank-Prothom Alo Math Olympiad began.
Dutch-Bangla Bank Ltd’s managing director Abul Kashem Md Shirin said that the results of the contestants prove that they are world class. He said that Dutch-Bangla Bank was proud to be part of the event.
Though Bangladesh did not win the gold this time, it tops the list among South Asian countries participating in the IMO. Sri Lanka ranked at 61, Pakistan at 82 and Nepal at 102. India did not participate this time.
China grabbed the first place at the Olympiad with a score of 215. Russia stood second with185. Coming up third was the US with a score of 183.
Prothom Alo’s associate editor Abdul Quayum felt that the Math Olympiad was instrumental in dispelling fear of math among students. He said, if Jamilur Reza Chowdhury was alive, these results would have made him happy. He recalled Jamilur Reza Chowdhury’s role in making the Olympiad popular in Bangladesh.
This is the 16th time Bangladesh is participating in IMO. In total Bangladesh has gathered 1 gold, 28 bronze and 31 honourable mentions in the Olympiads.
Bangladesh Match Olympiad Committee member Mohammad Kaikobad said that this achievement was remarkable and proved that the students of the country were marching ahead.
This report appeared in the print edition of Prothom Alo and has been rewritten in English by Ayesha Kabir