Indian student team clocks best ever fourth rank in International Mathematics Olympiad

A six-member student team from India have secured the country its best performance ever in the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) 2024. The Indian contingent of high school students came in fourth rank globally securing four Gold medals, one silver medal and one honourable mention at the just concluded 65th IMO held at Bath, United Kingdom.

This is the best performance by an Indian in IMO since the country’s debut in 1989 both in terms of number of Gold medals won and rank achieved. India’s previous best rank achieved until 2024 was rank 7 , at IMO 1998 and IMO 2001.

Adhitya Mangudy (Grade 11 from Pune), Ananda Bhaduri (Grade 12 from Guwahati), Kanav Talwar (Grade 10 from Noida), and Rushil Mathur (Grade 12 from Mumabi) bagged the gold medal. Arjun Gupta (Grade 12, from Delhi) won the Silver medal, and Siddharth Choppara (Grade 12 from Pune) clinched an honourable mention.

Globally, Team USA, China, and South Korea finished as the top three winners in that order. At fourth place, India’s total score at the Olympiad is 167 just one mark behind South Korea’s at third spot. The winning team USA’s total score is 192. In all 609 students (528 male, 81 Female) took part in the IMO 2024, which saw 108 countries participate. Mangudy’s performance also secured him an overall ranking of fifth – the best performance of an Indian team member ever.

PM Narendra Modi congratulated the team on X (Twitter). “It’s a matter of immense joy and pride that India has come 4th in its best-ever performance in the International Maths Olympiad. Our contingent has brought home 4 Golds and one Silver Medal. This feat will inspire several other youngsters and help make mathematics even more popular,” he said.

Speaking to businessline, the winning team said that the IMO has given them a chance to meet past medallists, math experts and their peers from more than 100 countries. They credit support from their schools and the interactions and mentorship from marquee math faculty across India as part of IMO training camp for their success. All of them intend to pursue undergraduate course in Mathematics or Computer science.

Talking about the challenge, Adithya Mangudy says Olympiad math is quite different from competitive exams. “The biggest difference is the time – in JEE, the aim is to solve problems as quickly as possible, while math olympiads involve thinking more about these problems- we get 4.5 hrs for the 3 problems, and only around 3 min per question for JEE. This makes the study for them quite different, but math olympiad preparation can help you in JEE preparation,” he notes.

Rushil Mathur says that the training camp at was a great experience, where they interacted with over 60 other students equally passionate about mathematics. Mathur is headed to the University of Oxford for his undergraduate studies in Maths and Computer Science.

Kanav Talwar says Olympiads kindle creativity in solving problems. “We can spend a long amount of time on a particular problem in Olympiads and explore many novel solutions,” he said.

“Interestingly, since 2019 (with the exception of 2020 when India couldn’t take part in the IMO) Team India has secured at least one Gold medal every year at the IMO and the total gold medal haul in all these years is nine,” Prithwijit De, the National Coordinator, Mathematical Olympiad, and an associate professor at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education (HBSCE), said.

The Indian team trained at the IMO Training Camp held at Chennai Mathematical Institute (CMI) this year and was accompanied by mentors professor Krishnan Sivasubramanian of IIT Bombay, and former IMO medallists Rijul Saini of HBCSE and Rohan Goyal currently a Ph D student at MIT, USA, among others.

CMI director Madhavan Mukund said they see growing interest each year among student community to participate in International Olympiads, be it Mathematics or Science. “As they see success stories in the previous editions, their confidence and determination also goes up,” he adds.

The IMO is a global level Mathematics Competition for High School students. Those in academia note that traditionally, Olympiad winners from India go on to do their undergraduate degrees in Mathematics or other STEM subjects abroad and get into academia. The pool of Olympiad winners and IIT aspirants does not generally overlap, they add.