Mathematical Communications 4(1999), 269-275 269

International mathematical olympiad∗

Željko Hanjš†

Today mathematical competitions are very popular with primary and secondary
school students and there are many countries all around the world where they are
regularly organised. There are several rounds and a lot of students are included,
especially at the beginning rounds. The best students from the previous round
have the right to continue on the higher level of competition. The final level for the
secondary school student competitors is the International Mathematical Olympiad
(IMO). The team for the IMO from Croatia is determined at the National Compe-
tition which is held in May.
The first mathematical competitions were organised in Hungary in 1894, and in
Romania in 1898. Mathematical competitions in Croatia for the secondary school
students started in 1959 and next year the first Federal Competition was held, which
was then organised every year until 1991.
Romania was the initiator of the first international competition. The idea of
organizing it came from the Romanian mathematician Tiberiu Roman in 1956,
and mathematics is still his great love, although he is 83 years old. After detailed
preparations the first International Mathematical Olympiad was held in Romania in
1959, as well as the second one in 1960. At the beginning only the following countries
from the Eastern Europe participated: Bulgaria, East Germany, Czechoslovakia,
Hungary, Poland, Romania and the USSR. In 1963 Yugoslavia participated for the
first time, and after that new and new countries from Europe arrived. The first
Olympiad in Yugoslavia took place in Cetinje, Montenegro, in 1967, and the second
one in Belgrade in 1977. 21 countries took part at that 19 th IMO. Cuba was the
first non-European country which participated at the 13 th IMO, in 1971, and it
was the host country in 1987. Australia participated for the first time at the 22 nd
IMO in 1981, and was the host country in 1988, when the 200 th anniversary of
Europeans inhabiting that continent was. In 1980 the IMO was not organized,
and only some local olympiads were held. In 1993 Croatia as well as Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Macedonia and Slovenia became regular members of IMO.
In 1999 the 40 th IMO was organized in Romania, and it was the fifth one held
in this country (the previous ones had been held in 1959, 1960, 1969, 1978). During
the last few years there where about 80 countries and 450 contestants at the IMO.

∗ The lecture presented at the Mathematical Colloquium in Osijek organized by Croatian

Mathematical Society - Division Osijek, May 28, 1999.

† Department of Mathematics, University of Zagreb, Bijenička 30, HR-10 000 Zagreb, Croatia,

e-mail: [email protected]
270 Ž. Hanjš

A few words from

the Regulations of the International Mathematical Olympiad

The aims of the IMO are:

– to discover, encourage, and challenge mathematically gifted young people in
all countries;
– to foster friendly relations between mathematicians of all countries;
– to create opportunities for the exchange of the information on school syllabuses
and practice throughout the world.
Participation and Responsibility
The contestants should not have been formally enrolled at a university or any
equivalent post-secondary institution and on the first day of contest they should
not be older than 20 years.
The Organizers of the IMO cover all official expenses for Leaders, Deputy Lead-
ers and Student Contestants, including meals and accommodation, for the period
of the official program. The Organizers cover the costs of all contest activities.
Deputy Leaders are responsible for the conduct of their students during the
whole period of the IMO.
Proposals for Problems
Each participating country is invited to submit up to six proposed problems,
with solutions, to the Problem Selection Committee, until the deadline given by the
Organizers.
Proposed problems should cover various fields of the pre-university mathematics
and should be of varying degrees of difficulty.
The Problem Selection Committee will prepare a short list of at least 25 problems
and no more than 30 problems with their solutions, for consideration by the Jury.
Jury Regulations
The International Jury shall consist of all Leaders of participating countries and
a Chairman appointed by the IMO Organizing Committee.
The Jury should confirm that the total number of prizes will not exceed one half
of the number of the Student Contestants; that the established number of prizes
will be distributed as the first, second and third prizes in a ratio approximating
1:2:3 as closely as possible.
A certificate of honorable mention shall be awarded to each Student Contestant
who does not receive a prize and who has obtained full marks on at least one
question.
Special prizes shall be awarded for a complete solution of outstanding merit
only.
The Jury approves the translations of the chosen problems into all required
languages.
Contest Regulations
Each of two contest periods lasted four and a half hours.
The only instruments permitted during the contest are writing and mechanical
drawing instruments.
 International mathematical olympiad 271

During the first half hour of each examination period each Student Contestant
may submit, on a specially provided note a paper, a written question for considera-
tion by the Jury.
The Coordinators together with the Leader and the Deputy Leader of each
country decide on the scores during a coordination session.
The Leader of the country which submitted the problem, will for each of the
six problems, respectively, verify the coordination of the solution given by Student
Contestants from the host country.

A breaf overlook on the IMO

The official beginning of the IMO is the first Jury meeting and three days later is
the official arrival of student contestants with their Deputy Leaders. Every partici-
pating country has its representative in the Jury. It has to prepare the problems for
the competition. The problems have been divided in four groups: algebra, geome-
try, number theory and combinatorics. Six problems have to be chosen, three for
the first day and three for the second day. The first problem should be the easiest,
the second one more difficult than the first and the third, the most difficult of the
first day problems. The first problem of the second day should be the easiest one of
the second day, the second one should be more difficult than this one, and the third
should be most difficult of all problems. This one is obtaining for the special prize,
and it is very hard to achieve it. For the first of all the English version is prepared,
and after that the versions in official languages: French, Chinese, German, Russian
and Spanish. After that the Leader of every country translates the problems into
the official language of his country. Each contestant may obtain a version in his
own language and in one of the official ones.
The day before the first day of contest the Opening Ceremony of the IMO takes
place. At that moment the Leaders have to be strictly separated from the Student
Contestants and the Deputy Leaders. On the first day of contest after answering
the student questions an excursion for the members of the Jury is organized. After
the second day of contest excursions are prepared for the students, they can spend
their time on computers and sport, but they also have a possibility to keep company
with students from other countries.
Two days after the contest Leaders and Deputy Leaders have to coordinate
the solutions of the students. At the end, according to the results of the contest,
the Jury decides about the prizes. An honorable mention was introduced at the
Olympiad in Australia.
Up to 1991 the Student Contestants from Croatia, as members of the Yugosla-
vian team, obtained 7 silver and 10 bronze medals, and one honorable mention.
From 1993 to 1999 they obtained 2 silver and 18 bronze medals as well as 4 honor-
able mentions. Our Contestants, who have been three times at the IMO are: Mladen
Bestvina from Osijek (1976 – 1978), Miroslav Jurišić from Split (1993 – 1995), An-
drijana Radovčić from Split (1997 – 1999) and Matija Kazalicki from Zagreb (1997 –
1999). Silver medals were won by: Damir Henč from Zagreb (1969), Mladen Bestv-
ina (silver + bronze + silver), Pavle Padžić from Zagreb (1982), Miroslav Jurišić
from Kaštel (1990), Bojan Antolović from Zagreb (1996) and Vedran Zorić from
272 Ž. Hanjš

Split (1997). The first Contestant from Croatia was Valerijan Bjelik from Vinkovci
(1963).
A great majority of Student Contestants decide to study mathematics, and many
of them are offered a job at the Department of Mathematics in Zagreb, or in some
other faculties. Some of them go to study abroad and return home after some years,
but some of them continue to work in some foreign country.
In Croatia a great care is dedicated to the preparation of student contestants as
well as organising the Winter and Summer Mathematical Meetings.
Now there is a plan of organizing the IMO for 8 years in future: South Korea
(2000), SAD (2001), Great Britain (2002), Japan (2003), Greece (2004), Iran (2005),
Slovenia (2006) and Vietnam (2007).

Members of the Croatian Olympiad team at the 40 th IMO, from the left:
Andrijana Radovčić, Tomislav Pejković, Srdan Maksimović, Mislav Mišković,
Miodrag Cristian Iovanov (Team leader in Romania), Marinko Jablan, Matija
Kazalicki, te Ilko Brnetić and Željko Hanjš (Team leaders)

Logo of the 40th IMO

Every IMO has its Logo, and some of them are very interesting. Let us have a
look at the Logo for the last IMO which was held in Romania.
 International mathematical olympiad 273

Logo for the 40th IMO

The Logo for IMO 99 was inspired by an old and very popular elementary prob-
lem in Romanian high schools. It is called the ”five lei coin problem”. The Roma-
nian curency is called ”leu” and its plural form is ”lei”. The English translation
of ”leu” is lion. So, this logo makes reference to the coin of five lei (lions). The
legend says that, using this coin, the famous Romanian geometer Gheorghe Titeica
created during the joke the following problem: three equal circles having a common
point, pairwisely intersect again at three points which lie on a fourth circle equal
to the previous ones.
In the given logo, the given circles are colored red, yellow and blue, which are
the colors of the Romanian national flag. The forth circle is painted black and it
is used to create number 40, the rank of this IMO, while the letter O from IMO
helps us to obtain five circles in all, the total number of circles used in the Olympic
Games.
The author of this Logo is Professor Bogdan Enescu, a former golden medallist
of the 20th IMO. Please, have some fun solving the ”five lei coin problem”!

Some other International Mathematical Competitions

• Mediterranean Mathematical Competition

• Austrian-Polish Mathematical Competition
• Polish-Israel Mathematical Competition
• Ibero-American Mathematical Competition
• Asian-Pacific Mathematical Competition
• The Tournament of the Towns

Some other information about the International Mathematical Olympiads can be

found on Internet, at:
http://www.math.hr/hmd
274 Ž. Hanjš

The problems from the 40th IMO

First day, 16 July 1999

Problem 1. Determine all sets S of at least three points in the plane which
satisfy the following condition:
for any two distinct points A and B in S, the perpendicular bisector of line segment
AB is an axis of symmetry for S.

Problem 2. Let n be a fixed integer, with b ≥ 2.

1. Determine the least constant C such that the inequality

 4
X X
xi xj (x2i + x2j ) ≤ C  xi 
1≤i<j≤n 1≤i≤n

holds for all real numbers x1 , ..., xn ≥ 0.

2. For this constant C, determine when the equality holds.

Problem 3. Consider an n × n square board, where n is a fixed even positive

integer. The board is divided into n2 unit squares. We say that two different squares
on the board are adjacent if they have a common side.
N unit squares on the board are marked in such a way that every square (marked
or unmarked) on the board is adjacent to at least one marked square.
Determine the smallest possible value of N .

Second day, 17 July 1999

Problem 4. Determine all pairs (n, p) of positive integers such that

p is a prime,
n ≤ 2p, and
(p − 1)n + 1 is divisible by np−1.

Problem 5. Two circles Γ1 and Γ2 are contained inside the circle Γ, and are
tangent to Γ at the distinct points M and N , respectively. Γ1 passes through the
center of Γ2 . The line passing through the points of intersection of Γ1 and Γ2 meets
Γ at A and B. The lines M A and M B meet Γ1 at C and D, respectively.

Problem 6. Determine all functions f : R → R such that

f(x − f(y)) = f(f(y)) + x f(y) + f(x) − 1

for all x, y ∈ R.
 International mathematical olympiad 275

Literatura
[1] Mathematics Competitions, Journal of the WFNMC, Australia.
[2] Matematičke olimpijade (Mathematical Olympiads), Element, Zagreb, 1997.
[3] Ž. Matjaž, Altius, Citius, Fortius, The Society of Mathematics, Physics and
Astronomy of Slovenia, Ljubljana, 1995.
[4] 40. National Math Olympiads in Slovenia, The Society of Mathematics, Physics
and Astronomy of Slovenia, Ljubljana, 1995.
[5] IX & XIX International Mathematical Olympiads, Mathematicians Society of
Serbia, Beograd, 1997.
[6] International and Balkan Mathematical Olympiads, 1984-1995, Mathemati-
cians Society of Serbia, Beograd, 1996.
[7] Problems of the Austrian-Polish Mathematical Competition, 1978-1993, The
Academic Distribution Center, Freeland, Maryland, 1994.
[8] USA Mathematical Olympiads 1972-1986, The Mathematical Association of
America, 1988.
[9] The Canadian Mathematical Olympiad 1969-1993, Canadian Mathematical So-
ciety, Toronto, 1993.
[10] A. Gardner, The Mathematical Olympiad Handbook – An Introduction to
Problem Solving, Oxford University Press, Oxford-New York-Tokyo, 1997.
[11] A. Engel, Problem-Solving Strategies, Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 1998.
[12] Matematičko-fizički list, Zagreb.
[13] Mathematics and Informatics Quarterly, International journal for mathematics
for secondary school students.
[14] Editions of Elementary Mathematics, Mathematical Competitions, Element,
Zagreb.