U.S. team breaks through in world math competition

China has dominated Mathematical Olympiad over last 30 years

For some, China’s dominance at the International Mathematical Olympiad seemed to confirm an unfortunate fact: Chinese students had gained an insurmountable upper hand over their American counterparts in math and science.

But last month, the world’s toughest mathematical tournament between top-ranked high school students yielded an unexpected outcome.

For the first time in more than two decades, a six-member team representing the United States won the 56th International Mathematical Olympiad, finishing with a total score of 185 to edge out China by four points. The United States last took the gold medal in 1994.

“What I’ll say is that we were definitely not expecting to win,” said Professor PoShen Loh, head coach for the U.S. Olympiad team. “You’re going up against a country that is four times the size, and I think that alone makes it quite a tough task.”

Over three decades, China has won the math Olympiad 19 times. Since 2006, the country had victories in seven out of nine competitions, with one loss each to Russia and South Korea. But after a series of second- and third-place finishes, Loh said, the U.S. team was ready to reclaim first place. “We’ve always been so close,” said Loh, a mathematics professor at Carnegie Mellon University.

David Stoner, a 17-year-old member of the U.S. team, said that he was intimidated by China, but that he thought the United States team had a shot at winning. More than 100 countries compete in the Olympiad, held this year in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

“We were definitely aware of our strong, strong competitors, but we also had a lot of confidence in ourselves,” said Stoner, a native of Aiken, S.C., who will attend Harvard in the fall.

Scores at the International Olympiad are based on the combined number of points by individual team members on six problems. Over two days, competitors answer problems that include algebra, geometry, number theory and combinators in 4½-hour sessions, which Loh called “extremely challenging.”

The questions demand multipage explanations of logical arguments, not just numerical answers, said Caitlin Kizielewicz, who works in press relations at Carnegie Mellon.

Final results of the competition were first shared electronically — and the American team had reloaded its webpage to see the scores. When the results came through, Loh said, a cheer erupted from the lobby of their hotel.

“In some sense, this is a cheer that has been six or seven years brewing,” Loh said.

But while the six-member team, which also included Ryan Alweiss, Allen Liu, Yang Liu, Shyam Narayanan and Michael Kural, were hailed as “really smart” by their coach, Loh said that the U.S. has always been strong in accelerated mathematics.

“At the very, very high end, the United States is actually very competitive, both as an incubator and an attractor of talent abroad,” he said.