06/06/2019

This group only thinks about one thing… Math.

Team Brazil – O sexteto que vai defender o Brasil na IMO: treino adoidado para tentar ganhar posições no ranking global (Marcos Michael/VEJA)

Reproduction from Veja Magazine

By Maria Clara Vieira and Isabela Izidro – 1st place in the Mathematics category of the 2018 IMPA-SBM Journalism Award

Yes, it's an Olympics. But instead of courts and tracks, the competition takes place in a closed room. Instead of balls and rackets, skill is measured by numbers and indecipherable formulas. Instead of uniforms, the athletes wear jeans and t-shirts. Instead of an enthusiastic audience, the environment requires total silence. We are talking about the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), the fierce world competition that, this year, will confine 619 mathematicians to a large hall in a hotel in Barra da Tijuca, in the West Zone of Olympic Rio de Janeiro, on July 18th and 19th. The IMO goes far beyond the restricted universe of geniuses of abstract thought—and the country chosen to host it always benefits. Schools mobilize, support for local athletes gains strength, and mathematics benefits from a vigorous polishing of its image as a subject that kids hate.

For Brazil, in particular, the gathering of young mathematical prodigies is a breath of fresh air in a devastating scenario. Research conducted by the IDados Institute in Rio de Janeiro found that only 0.8% of Brazilian students achieved the minimum score needed to be among the top 10% in the world in the latest PISA mathematics test, an exam that measures the level of high school students on an international scale. In other words, at the top of the discipline, the best in Brazil are on par with the average students from the most developed countries.

Swimming against the current of poor education, academic research in the most exact of sciences has advanced in recent years, driven by a crop of top-level scientists—including a Fields Medalist, Artur Ávila from Rio de Janeiro, who received the prize, with the weight of a Nobel Prize, in 2014. Of the five levels into which the most qualified countries in research are divided, Brazil is in the second, already eyeing a coveted spot in the first, which includes giants of mathematics such as the United States and South Korea. Reaching this position is largely due to the Institute of Pure and Applied Mathematics (IMPA), a reference in the field, which strives to detect and hone talent and remove mathematics' reputation for being difficult. Responsible for organizing the Rio de Janeiro IMO, the institute believes that olympiads are an efficient formula for rehabilitating the discipline. “Students are presented with fun and challenging exercises that draw them into mathematics,” says the director of IMPA, Marcelo Viana, who adds a caveat: “As long as Brazil doesn’t invest massively in teachers, it will remain behind in education.”

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It was at IMPA that "Nobel" Ávila, 36, was trained, himself a gold medalist in an international olympiad — a constant, incidentally, among Fields Medal winners: eight out of ten members of the pantheon of mathematics have been at the top of the IMO podium at some point. IMPA promotes national competitions to scout mathematical minds in schools, and this scouting has yielded good results in the world of competitions. Between 2010 and 2016, Brazil moved from 35th to 15th position in the world Olympic ranking. The sextet that makes up the Brazilian team at this year's IMO has accumulated a total of 140 medals in mathematical competitions, 76 of them gold.

The standout member of Team Brazil is Pedro Henrique Sacramento, an 18-year-old from São Paulo, with sixty medals—37 in mathematics and the rest in computer science, physics, astronomy, and robotics. “I’ve loved exact sciences for as long as I can remember. I love challenges, and the problems presented by competitions force me to think differently, create strategies, and explore,” explains Pedro, who in September will begin his computer science and mathematics courses at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Also with his ticket booked is João César Vargas, 19, from Minas Gerais, with fifteen gold medals, who will be competing in his third IMO. Between competitions and parties—he’s the biggest party animal in the group—João was accepted to study mathematics at Princeton University, currently considered the best in that field.

Besides qualifying for the IMO, Pedro, João, and André Yuji, 17 years old and with fifteen gold medals, have in common their school of origin: Colégio Etapa, in São Paulo. The other three athletes on the "team" come from schools in Fortaleza, Ceará: Bruno Brasil, the youngest, at 16 years old, Davi Cavalcanti, 17, and George Lucas, 18. On the eve of the big championship, the study routine of the six occupies eight to twelve hours a day, time in which they can work on five or six exercises. "There are days when I can't solve any," sighs Davi. As a result, they think about mathematics non-stop. "Right now, talking to you, I'm racking my brain over a problem I couldn't solve," confesses André.

The oldest and most prestigious scientific challenge for students up to high school, the IMO is a product (a very positive one) of the Cold War. The first Olympiad was in 1959 in Romania, and the "international" in the name referred to countries under the influence of the Soviet Union, where the teaching of exact sciences from an early age is intertwined with fierce school competitions. The United States joined the competition in 1974, and the IMO then truly gained a planetary dimension: in Rio, 115 countries are represented. Russians and Americans continue to battle for the top positions on the mathematical podium (the American team won last year's IMO), but China and South Korea compete brain-to-brain for the best positions. As in sports, national teams can include foreigners. Born in China, Qi Qi (pronounced titi), 17 years old, the only girl on the Canadian team, competed for the United States in the women's world championship, failed to make the Olympic team and transferred, laptop and pen, to the Canadian side.

One of the biggest celebrities to ever grace the Olympic carpet in Rio doesn't even compete anymore, but his achievements would thrill any aspiring genius: Zhuo Qun Alex Song, 20 years old, born in China and raised in Canada, has five gold medals at the IMO, making him the all-time record holder for the competition. He won a rare "gold 42," awarded to those who achieved the maximum score on all six questions of the test. In 2015, he answered them all correctly, without a single mistake. Regarding the glorious experience, Song is modest: "It wasn't the most difficult test I've ever taken, but it was the most intense," he says. He's a graduate student—you guessed it—at Princeton and now helps formulate the IMO exam.

Veterans are recruited to hone the skills of Olympic athletes worldwide. Song himself even trained with Americans. The custom of inviting foreigners is cited by the current US coach, Po Shen-Lon, as one of the factors for American success in the IMOs. "It's a way to encourage the exchange of experiences among the best minds," explains the coach, who, yes, has Asian ancestry, as do almost all of the team he captains; this is the case for five of the six athletes on Team USA. "Maintaining high performance under intense pressure is a very tough challenge," says Andrew Gu, 16, who is part of the team. The American selection process is among the most difficult in the world—every year, there are around 300,000 applicants for the national stage. Good results in the IMO are a direct passport to the best universities. Russia, another traditional breeding ground for talent, attributes its excellent results in competitions to the country's culture. "Since the times of the Soviet Union, we have cultivated the appreciation of abstract thinking and problem-solving," explains Russian coach Nazar Agakhanov.

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Just like in the Olympic Games, the history of the International Olympic Games (IMO) has cases of cheating, intrigue, and even political undertones. In 2003, at the Bucharest IMO, it was proven that the organizers passed the answers in advance to the Bulgarian team; the country was not disqualified, in what is still seen today as one of the most shameful episodes in the Olympics. Rivalries take on dramatic tones. In two Olympics, the Brazilian team surpassed the Hungarian team, a habitual gold medal winner, much to the chagrin of coach József Pelikán. When the situation changed, he made a point of giving the Brazilian team's coach a magnet of Budapest, the capital of Hungary, saying: "Put it on your refrigerator"—a phrase that became an inside joke. North Korea, also a medal collector, often brings its capacity for creating trouble to the IMO. At the 1991 Olympics, the entire North Korean team was caught cheating and was disqualified. In 2010, they repeated the feat, receiving the same punishment. Last year in Hong Kong, they achieved an honorable sixth place, but a young man fled and sought asylum at the South Korean consulate. North Korea will not participate in the IMO in Rio.

The passion for solving complex problems will be tested to the limit during the two-day competition. Expectations among the Brazilian competitors are high and based—you guessed it—on mathematics, which has given weight to factors such as familiar time zones, native language, and predictable food. “Considering the statistics of host countries, I believe we will rise in the rankings,” says Davi. The young athletes will have four hours to solve three exercises per day—the third and sixth are extremely difficult. The difficulty level of the questions, in fact, ranges from master's to doctoral level. Generally, getting four out of six problems right guarantees a gold medal. It's not enough to master the technique, as they say. The mathematics athlete must also be creative, know how to combine concepts, and be very, very fast. “It's a race for the eureka moment,” defines Professor Edmilson Motta, head coach of the Brazilian team, with more than twenty years of experience in world olympiads. “When the eureka moment happens, the feeling is wonderful.” If this feeling is repeated among the six Brazilian Olympians, it will be quite a legacy.