USA TEAM EXCELS AT THE 2000 INTERNATIONAL MATHEMATICAL OLYMPIAD.
Taejon, South Korea

The top 12 teams and their scores out of a possible 252 points were:

China (218), Russia (215), USA (184), South Korea (172), Bulgaria (169), Vietnam (169), Belarus (165), Taiwan (164), Hungary (156), Iran (155), Israel (139), Romania (139).

The USA Team Leader, Titu Andreescu, Director of the American Mathematics Competitions, asserted:

This year's USA participation was a great success. It was called a triple-triple: three of our students received a gold medal, three received a silver medal, and three was the rank of our team. We have worked very hard to prepare the team and all of the students performed remarkably. Next year the competition will be held in Washington, DC. We students and coaches are determined to repeat or better this performance

The team was also accompanied by Zuming Feng from Phillips Exeter Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, who was the team's Deputy Leader, and Richard Gibbs from Fort Lewis College, Durango, Colorado, who was the Official USA Leader Observer.

The USA team was chosen based on their performance on the 29th annual USA Mathematical Olympiad, and additional testing that took place at this year's Mathematical Olympiad Summer Program which was held at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, June 6- July 4, 2000.

Two representative questions that appeared on the 2000 IMO are as follows:

• Problem 2:
  Let a, b, c be positive real numbers such that abc = 1. Prove that
  
  (a - 1 + 1/b ) ( b - 1 + 1/c ) ( c - 1 + 1/a ) <= 1.
  
  (proposed by USA, Titu Andreescu)
  
  Problem 4
  A magician has one hundred cards numbered 1 to 100. He puts them into three boxes, a red one, a white one and a blue one, so that each box contains at least one card.
  A member of the audience selects two of the three boxes, chooses one card from each and announces the sum of the numbers on the chosen cards. Given this sum, the magician identifies the box from which no card has been chosen.
  How many ways are there to put all the cards into the boxes so that this trick always works? (Two ways are considered different if at least one card is put into a different box.)
  
  (proposed by Hungary, Sandor Dobos)

The USA Mathematical Olympiad is a program of the Mathematical Association of America. Additional support is provided by the Army Research Office, the Office of Naval Research, the Microsoft Corporation, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The 2000 USA IMO Team Members:

1. Reid Barton, Homeschooled, Arlington, MA
   GOLD Medalist
2. George Lee, Jr., Aragon High School, San Mateo, CA
   GOLD Medalist
3. Ricky Liu, Newton South High School, Newton, MA
   SILVER Medalist
4. Po-Ru Loh, James Madison Memorial HS, Madison, WI
   SILVER Medalist
5. Oaz Nir, Monta Vista HS, Saratoga, CA
   GOLD Medalist
6. Paul Valiant, Milton Academy, Belmont, MA
   SILVER Medalist