Second Gold for Peter McNamara at 2001 International Mathematical Olympiad

Peter McNamara, of Perth, has become the first Australian student to win a Gold Medal twice at International Mathematical Olympiads.

This is a result of recent Australian participation in the International Mathematical Olympiad, held in Washington DC.

Australian students were successful in winning a total of 1 gold medal and 4 bronze medals.

Peter scored 36 points of a possible 42, achieving 4 complete solutions, and was placed equal 10th, among 473 of the world's elite students from 83 countries.

Peter McNamara receives his Gold Medal from Sir Andrew Wiles, the renowned English mathematician who recently proved Fermat's Last Theorem, which had been unsolved since its conjecture 350 years before..

In the IMO Gold Medals are awarded to students placed in the top one twelth of students. In the history of participating at these Olympiads Peter is only the eighth Australian student to win a Gold Medal. The first was another Western Australian Andrew Hassell, who won Australia's first Gold Medal in Helsinki back in 1985. Andrew is now a research mathematician at the Australian National University in Canberra.

Two girls located in Melbourne, Yiying (Sally) Zhao and Bobbi Ramchen won Bronze Medals, while two boys from Sydney, Stewart Wilcox and David Chan won another two. A further team member, Hugh Miller, of Sydney, performed consistently to narrowly miss a Bronze medal.

In the Mathematics Olympiad, 6 students from each country attempt 6 problems, each worth 7 points.

Detailed Australian scores were

Name	School	State	Year	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q6	Total	Award
David Chan	Sydney Grammar School	NSW	11	6	0	0	1	6	0	13
Peter McNamara	Hale School	WA	12	7	6	7	7	7	2	36
Hugh Miller	Barker College	NSW	12	5	0	0	1	2	0	8
Bobbi Ramchen	Melbourne Girls Grammar School	Vic	10	6	0	0	2	4	0	12
Stewart Wilcox	North Sydney Boys High School	NSW	11	7	0	3	0	4	0	14
Zhao Yiying	Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School	Vic	11	4	0	0	7	3	0	14

(Cutoffs 30 20 and 11 for Gold, Silver and Bronze)

Australia's score is 97, placing it in 25th position of 83 countries.

Team Leader was Associate Professor David Hunt, of the University of New South Wales. Deputy Team Leader, and Director of Training, was Dr Angelo di Pasquale, of the University of Melbourne.

The Australian team after the Closing Ceremony, from left, Peter McNamara, Stewart Wilcox, Bobbi Ramchen, David Chan, Sally Zhao and Hugh Miller.

China was placed first with Russia and the USA joint second. Four perfect scores were achieved, two from China and two from the USA.

One of the perfect scorers in the Mathematics Olympiad , Reid Barton of the USA, became the first student ever to win four Gold Medals at an IMO. In the following week he participated also in the Informatics Olympiad, obtaining the top score with 580 points out of the possible 600. He was 55 points ahead of the second placegetter. This was his third Gold Medal in the Informatics Olympiad.

The Mathematics and Informatics Olympiads are administered in Australia by the Australian Mathematics Trust and receive support from the Federal Government throught the Department of Education, Employment and Youth Affairs and the Department of Industry, Science and Resources.

Peter McNamara is pictured after the Closing Ceremony with Terry Tao, who won a Gold Medal for Australia in 1988 at the age of 12 and is still the youngest ever winner of a Gold Medal at IMO.

IMO Unofficial Country scores, ranked, by problem.