07 AMOC 1991-99

Birth of the Challenge

Towards the end of Chapter 04 I spend some time discussing the plans of Peter O'Halloran and Bruce Henry for a new concept - The Challenge. The Challenge was by 1991 about to become reality. As noted in Chapter 04, some of us were already activated in starting to prepare materials by the late 1980s. The Challenge was very much designed to consolidate on student development under the supervision of their teachers, so there would be a heavy accent on teacher involvement and teacher support.

The Challenge was conceived as a 3-part program, the Challenge Stage, Enrichment Stage and an Olympiad Exam, the Australian Intermediate Mathematics Olympiad (AIMO), effectively the National Olympiad for students up to Year 10. The AIMO already existed. It had been known for the first ten years or so as the Interstate finals, in which state directors for each state entered their best local students into this one event. From 1991 to 1994 it was to be known as the Telstra Competition. When the sponsorship terminated, AIMO adopted its current name, to sit truly on top of what was to be the Challenge Program. It was expected that students had written the Enrichment (originally the Polya level, later Noether).

Birth of the Challenge Stage

The Challenge stage was a set of 6 problems for students in lower high school, a junior level for years 7 and 8 and an intermediate level for years 9 and 10, over a three-week period in the first months of the year. A committee to set the problems, write the solutions and prepare teacher assitance materials, was formed under the chairmanship of Bruce Henry. The committee started convening in 1990 and members included Bob Bryce (ANU), Peter O'Halloran, Leonie Corcoran (ACT Government School teacher), Andy Edwards (Mildura), Michael Evans (Scotch College), Hans Lausch (Monash), Mike Newman (ANU), and Alice Thomas (Meriden College, Sydney).

This grew somewhat in the early years, helped by heavy recruiting by Peter. Lorrainne Mottershead had independently attended ICME 7 in Quebec in 1992. Peter O'Halloran met her there and recruited her. Anna Nakos, a young Adelaide teacher with an honours degree attended AAMT in Perth in January 1993. Peter met her there for the first time and recruited her. Giovanna Vardaro, who had been AMC Director for South Australia since 1985, was with Anna and joined at the same time. John Dowsey was an old colleague of Bruce Henry, and was working in the Education Faculty in Melbourne University. He joined in 1995. Andrei Storozhev, who had a Group Theory PhD from Moscow State University had joined the full time staff of AMT as an Editor in 1994 and he joined the Committee immediately. So these people were all in place by the time I had become Executive Director of the Trust in 1994 and joined the Committee in 1995.

The first meeting was at Peter's house in 1990. The next meeting recorded was at Sancta Sophia College of Sydney University on 16 and 17 December 1990. In memory of this the very first Challenge problem set was named in honour of a Sophia, who was a character in the problem. The committee met again on 08 February 1991 at Bruce Henry's home in Melbourne and on the following day at Scotch College.

The unveiling of the Challenge Stage, with its first question including Sophia, was in 1992. A grand total of just 366 entered at Year 7, but numbers were higher in Years 8 (1911), Year 9 (2913) and year 10 (3619) giving a total of 8809. Numbers increased each year until 1996 when the total had reached 14,111. Later, by 1999 they had reached over 16,000. A separate paper for years 7 and 8 (Junior) and 9 and 10 (Intermediate) was introduced from 1993.

Meetings eventually were held three times a year. Meetings in Hans Lausch's diary included 11 to 13 December 1992 at Melbourne Grammar, 19 to 21 February 1993 at Scotch College, 14 to 16 May 1993 in Canberra, 10 to 12 December 1993 at Melbourne Grammar, 25 to 27 February at Scotch College, 27 to 25 May 1994 in Canberra, 10 to 12 February 1995 at Scotch College, 26 to 28 May 1995 in Canberra and 08 to 10 December 1995 at Scotch College.

Whereas I was not a member of the Committee in the first five years I distinctly remember attending Friday night dinners in Canberra at either Peter O'Halloran's House or later at University House. Later in the 1990s for a few years the February meeting was held in Adelaide, hosted by Anna and Giovanna at their schools.

Birth of the Enrichment Stage

The Enrichment Stage was to be course work, with hopefully a special course for students in each year from 7 to 10. The first to be developed was eventually to be known as the Polya, but it was the only one to be available in the first year, 1992, so was just known as the Enrichment, originally. The main editors of the Polya were Geoff Ball and Keith Hamann. This depended on an external text for Geometry, Zorzetti, and still does in 2012. I recall being asked by Peter O'Halloran to typeset parts of this book by Peter in the late 1980s and Clarice McLean, then Peter's PA and later mine, also used TeX in those days to prepare the original versions. In 1992 this book attracted a massive 3602 entries, but as other books were to appear on to the scene most of these entries transferred to the new books, and Polya entries steadied at just a small number of hundreds.

Michael Evans and Bruce Henry were engaged as the main editors for the next two books, the Euler, which appeared in 1993 and the Gauss, which appeared in 1994. Whereas Michael and Bruce did the editing and much of the writing, several others were also engaged at the writing level.

Other writers for the Euler, designed for talented students in Year 7 (or 8) were Alice Thomas, Geoff Ball, Warren Atkins, Leonie Corcoran and Lawrence Doolan.

Other writers for the Gauss, designed for students in Year 8 (or 9), were Norm Hoffman, Geoff Ball, Gus Gale (New Zealand), Warren Atkins, Robert Vardas, Andy Edwards, Keith Hamann, Bill Pender and Lawrence Doolan.

By 1994 Andrei Storozhev had come on to the staff and he took responsibility for all the writing. Michael Evans and Bruce Henry had started on the Noether, for Year 9 (or 10) but Andrei took this all over, as well as editing for the other three. The Noether appeared in 1995.

Australian Intermediate Mathematics Olympiad

This event was rebadged from Interstate Finals to Telstra Competition in 1991 and then its current name from 1995. As the Interstate finals it had an entry of not more than the AMOC Senior paper until now, in fact just 155 in 1991. But the advent of the Challenge and Enrichment Stages bolstered the numbers immediately in 1992 to 364 and improved steadily through the decade to 834 by 1999, a healthy number indeed. It became based closely on the USA's AIME exam, with several of the questions easily marked by requiring the answer as an integer between 0 and 999, but there were some questions requiring arguments.

Acknowledgement

I wish to thank Leone Paget for access to her photos of the IMOs between 1990 and 1995 which have been used on this site. This had been a missing part of my collection.

1991 IMO Sigtuna

David Hunt left the scene temporarily and David Paget took over as Leader until 1995. Recent IMO student John Graham, now married to Melinda, became Deputy Leader, so both Leader and Deputy were accompanied by wives. By now Hans Lausch was also attending IMOs as Australia's APMO representative and is seen here (right) with David Paget.

For several years one of the most significant members of the IMO Site Committee, as the IMO Advisory Board was then known, was Englishman John Hersee, who is seen here at left.

At right is South African John Webb, who much later, from about 2002, was to become the Executive Director of IMO through the remainder of this history. The gentleman between them is unidentified, except I believe he is probably the Chair of the Swedish organising committee.

The invited students attended the selection school at Melbourne Grammar School, and this became at the time an established part of the program although later there were other venues.

The students attending the camp are assembled for the photo above.

In school uniforms here are the team members at the school just after selection. From left are Anthony Henderson, Luke Kameron, Joanna Masel, Angelo Di Pasquale, Meng Tan and Justin Sawon.

There was also a pre-IMO training school at Melbourne Grammar. Here is the team seen before departing for IMO. From left are Justin Sawon, Luke Kameron, Joanna Masel, Anthony Henderson, Meng Tan and Angelo Di Pasquale.

The team is seen above and below after arriving in Sweden.

The medal tally was three Bronze, won by Anthony, Angelo and Joanna. Angelo was to become in due course our Director of Training, Anthony became a mathematics academic at the University of Sydney and won Silver and Gold Medals in the following years, while Joanna has pursued a successful academic career in mathematical biology.

Here is a photo of the party in Sweden. From left are Angelo Di Pasquale, John Graham, David Paget, Justin Sawon, Luke Kameron, Meng Tan, Hans Lausch, Joanna Masel, Anthony Henderson and Melinda Graham.

1992 IMO Moscow

The 1992 IMO was held in Moscow, and Australia's team was again led by David Paget and John Graham. There were some interesting aspects of the team. Anthony Henderson was the only student returning from last year's team, where he won Bronze. Frank Calegari was the younger of Danny, who had been selected in 1989. Ben Burton, another new student had only come to notice the previous year with an AMC Medal, so was not expected to perform so well. The other three were Adrian Banner, Rupert McCallum and Lawrence Ip.

The team is shown above en route to Melbourne Airport, from left, Ben, Anthony, Adrian, Rupert, Lawrence and Frank.

The team is shown above at the airport in the company of Peter O'Halloran (centre). From left can otherwise be seen Ben, Lawrence, Anthony, Rupert, David and Frank.

This in fact a more formal photograph of the team at the airport with Peter. From left are Ben, Lawrence, Anthony, Peter, Rupert, Adrian and Frank.

The photos above and below show the team on excursion. I think that is Melinda Graham at left above, Ben is wearing a yellow shirt, Anthony one of light colour, Rupert black, Adrian an AMT Fibonacci T shirt, Frank at left below and Lawrence with strap over shoulder below.

The team was placed a creditable 19th, while the Medal tally was a Gold, a Silver and two Bronze, the latter to Frank and Rupert.

Anthony improved his result to Silver and the Gold was won by Ben. The Gold by Ben was remarkable. He knew when selected he wasn't rated the best but he set his mind in preparation to a high score by intense preparation. Each day he would solve two IMO problems unsighted by himself. This continued throughout the 3 months of preparation to the extent that he was confident in the end he could solve any problem on the day. His preparation was thorough and successful. The team is shown after the Closing Ceremony with Bernhard Neumann, from left Adrian, Ben Frank, Anthony, Rupert and Lawrence.

And here is the whole Australian party after the Closing Ceremony.

Two of the strongest IMO stalwarts of the period from 1990 to the present time have been Hungary's Jozsef Pelikan (left) and Claude Deschamps as seen above at the Moscow IMO. Claude was president of IMO during the 1990s and still was in 2012 Team Leader of France. Claude was a mathematics teacher at Lycee Louis le Grand, adjacent to the Sorbonne, France's most successful school academically. Among its Alumni were Lagrange, d'Alembert and Robespierre. Jozsef was a distinguished IMO student for Hungary, having won several medals, and succeeded Claude as IMO President about 2000, serving for about 10 years and still Hungarian leader in 2012.

1993 IMO Istanbul

In 1993 the IMO was in Istanbul. It contained three members from the year before, Anthony Henderson, who had won Bronze then Silver at two previous appearances, and 1993 Bronze Medallists in Frank Calegari and Rupert McCallum. Joining them were William Hawkins, William Hart and Simon Schwarz. David Paget and John Graham again led the team.

Some members are seen above going to the airport, accompanied by 1992 team member Lawrence Ip, and card playing had started before they had taken off. Above from left are Rupert, Frank, Lawrence, William, Simon and Anthony, while below at the airport are from left William Hart (partly obscured), William Hawkins, Simon, Anthony, Frank, Rupert and Lawrence.

With this experience and promise this team came 13th, the best performance of an Australian team so far against so many countries. Its Medal count was also the best with a Gold, two Silver and three Bronze.

The team is shown above on arrival in Istanbul, from left Peter O'Halloran, John Graham, Deputy Leader, Anthony, William Hart, Frank, Rupert, Simon and William Hawkins. The Gold was to be won by Anthony, to give him a Bronze-Silver-Gold Trifecta, the same as the one earned by Terry Tao. The Silvers were won by Frank and William Hart, giving Frank a Bronze-Silver pair while the others won Bronze, Rupert now having two.

1994 IMO Hong Kong

In 1994 the IMO was in Hong Kong. This was a rare year when the pre-IMO training was held in Canberra, in fact at Canberra Grammar School. This provided the opportunity for the team to gain audience with the Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Paul Keating. John Graham had left for overseas further study and the Deputy position was taken by Dr Michael Evans, head of mathematics at Scotch.

This photograph is posted under licence from newspix/News Limited. From left in the Prime Minister's office is Akshay Venkatesh, Andrew Rogers, Nigel Tao, Chaitanya Rao, Mr Keating, James Lefevre, William Hawkins and Deputy Leader Dr Michael Evans. The Team Leader, Dr David Paget, had left in advance for the leader's retreat in Hong Kong, where the exam paper would be set.

The training before departure, at Canberra Grammar School, included the usual exams and feedback sessions. Here David Paget is seen working with from left Andrew, Chaitanya and Nigel.

And here is Michael Evans with Akshay, William and Andrew.

The team won two Silver Medals, to William Hawkins and James Lefevre, while Akshay, Andrew and Nigel all won Bronze. Seen above after the Closing Ceremony are, from left are Hans Lausch, William, Chaitanya, Andrew, Akshay (front), James, Nigel, Michael Evans and David Paget.

1994 to 1996 Olympiad Funding Woes and Success

Olympiads, unlike the multichoice exams, are very expensive programs to run. Whereas the multichoice exams have students working in their normal classroom, Olympiad training involves travel and housing, as the best students need to be brought together for face to face training at the elite end. Furthermore, there are costs of the trainers, administration and issues of duty of care. The total cost of this is prohibitive for parents on a basic wage. In the 1980s, as the effect of this was becoming obvious, we had support from the Department which included Education. Our ongoing operations were paid for by a Program of supporting events of National Significance. This fund was drying up and we were also facing competition from the Science Olympiads for Government resources.

Rivalry with the Science Olympiads was not confined to finance. It was also manifested in the competition to get the best students. In 1994 we were told by Government we would not be considered for funding unless they could deal with us as one body. Preferably they would have liked us to amalgamate, and this was an issue.

I had become Executive Director by August 1994 and realised that we had to get talking. Unfortunately for some time this was difficult. I found that my opposite numbers, the Directors of the three Science Olympiads (Physics, Chemistry and Biology) wanted conditions which were not acceptable to us.

The Chairman of AMOC at the time, Professor Gordon Preston, of Monash University, was a strong operator and quickly grasped the issues. I have noted him earlier. He had been one of the Bletchley Park decoders and used to run at lunch times in Alan Turing's group. He noted that the Chairman of the Science Olympiads, Fred Smith, was someone he knew and could talk to. Over a weekend he and Fred Smith had constructed an agreement to form a National Olympiads Council, so it was all a fait accompli. The members of the Council were the four directors, me and the three from the science disciplines, and was chaired by them so it appeared to be that we were outweighted. However a good spirit developed and we started lobbying politicians, pointing out the inequities to parliamentarians in mass letters between funding for sport and elite young scientists.

Gordon is seen above chairing an AMOC meeting of the early-to-mid-1990s. From left are David Hunt, Clarice McLean, Gordon, Peter O'Halloran and Judith Downes.

We gained traction. Opposition members, particularly Senators Margaret Reid (ACT) and John Watson (Tasmania) started asking embarrassing questions using this theme. There was initial resistance, but towards the end of 1995 the Minister for Science, Senator Peter Cook, announced that the four Olympiads would be funded a total amount of $300K per annum.

As it turned out Senator Cook was not able to fulfill the promise as the March 1996 election intervened and the government was defeated. The new government did come up with a slightly lesser figure of $250K however, and this was followed with a further $150K from Education. The Education section was used for those parts of the Olympiad programs which were school based and the science part for the elite parts, particularly the expensive camps.

Funding has continued continuously through the period of this history. However it has not been easy. This will be returned to in a later chapter.

1994 to 1999: Birth of the Blazer Ceremonies

Together with working for funding, we worked closely with Australian Science Olympiads (ASO), as they were earlier known, to conduct joint team farewells, which were to become the blazer ceremonies. In fact ASO started as a body incorporated in the ACT in the mid-1990s, and shortly after I succeeded Peter O'Halloran I was invited to be a member of their first Board. In fact this was formally set up in 1996 and I remained on the Board until 2004. ASO later changed its name to Australian Science Innovations (ASI).

Our structure did not allow reciprocation. However we did have the Advisory Committee and ASO did have a seat on this, contributing to our policy development.

It was important to have official functions to jointly celebrate the teams. In the earliest years we held these as farewells mainly, at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, or at Scienceworks at Spotswood in Victoria. Sometimes they were welcomes home. In the earliest days, before the 1996 election, Peter McGaurin, Opposition Spokesperson for Science, always accepted our invitations to attend and he was a great supporter of our Olympiad programs. Later he attended when it was his role in Government.

The above is from a typical one at the Powerhouse Museum at the 1997 farewell. It shows David Hunt at left and Professor Derek Robinson, then a Deputy President of the Academy, and former member of the old AMC Governing Board as a Professor at the ANU, at right, with two of the maths team members Jonathan Kusilek and Thomas Lam (who won a 1997 Gold Medal).

In 1998 John Moore was Minister for Science and he arranged for the farewell to be held at the nearby ABC Headquarters in Ultimo. He is shown above surrounded by members of all teams. I can identify Andrew Cheeseman, centre front and Geoffrey Chu and Stephen Farrar, both IMO Gold Medallists to the back right and Justin Koonin in front of them at right.

In 1999 we ran a formal function at the Australian Museum in Sydney, where UC Vice Chancellor, AMT Board Chair and by that time Chair of the National Olympiad Council, which had been set up as described above by Gordon Preston and Fred Smith, Don Aitkin was the special guest. The history of what were to become blazer ceremonies has a little way to go from here and will be resumed in Chapter 12.

1995 IMO Toronto

In this team both of Terry Tao's brothers, Nigel and Trevor, participated. It was the first time a full family of three had been members of an IMO team. Also in the team were Gordon Deane, Christopher Barber, Jian He and Herbert Xu. Nigel was the only member with IMO experience. David Paget led this team for the last time and Michael Evans remained as Deputy.

Jian He won a Silver Medal, the best result of the team. The Tao brothers both one Bronze in remarkable fashion. Both were located in different rooms, but both got the same score, both got the same score for each problem, and both used the same method for each problem. Gordon and Herbert also won Bronze Medals. Pictured above after the Closing Ceremony are Michael and Cheryl Evans, Trevor, Jian, Gordon, the guide, Christopher, Nigel, Herbert and Leone and David Paget.

AMOC Leadership

After Peter O'Halloran's death in 1994 Professor Anne Street, of the University of Queensland took over the position of Deputy Chair of AMOC. After Gordon Preston's success in forming the National Olympiad Council, he retired and Anne Street became Chair in 1996. Anne followed the tradition of AMOC having very highly regarded and published mathematicians as Chairs, and her place as Deputy was taken by Professor Cheryl Praeger, of the University of Western Australia, another mathematician in this tradition.

Of the other Executive members, the main change not discussed elsewhere in this chapter was that of Treasurer. From 1990 to 1995 AMOC's treasurer had been Judith Downes. Judith, a former AMOC director for Victoria, had a first class honours degree in pure mathematics, but was also an accountant, and had led AMOC through the difficult transition to the Trust. She retired while starting a new career with the ANZ Bank. Her place was taken for the remainder of this decade by Dr Philip Edwards, a mathematician at Monash University.

1996 IMO Mumbai

This IMO had been scheduled for Delhi but with 4 months to go the venue was transferred to Mumbai. I had hoped to attend this IMO but there was a clash with ICME in Seville. What we did though was to arrange for the pre-IMO training camp to be held in Singapore, allowing less time difference in a country where they were not likely to have health risks.

I worked closely with our new-found Singapore contacts, namely Raffles and Hwa Chong, and booked accommodation and training facilities at the YMCA. This proved to be fine but there was another complication. One of our students, in fact our top-ranked student Jian He, who had won Silver in 1995, was not yet an Australian citizen. Under AMOC rules he was eligible for selection as a permanent resident, but Singapore would only permit a visa for visitors from China if a $5000 bond could be raised from inside Singapore. Hwa Chong kindly agreed to enable this, although the visa was only processed at the very last moment before departure from Australia.

I traveled ahead (otherwise en route to ICME in Spain) to set up the venue and stayed in Singapore during the stay, helping with marking, etc.

David Paget had now retired as Leader and David Hunt returned to the scene as leader. Michael Evans stayed on for one more year as deputy and Hans was also there.

The stay in itself was quite useful and the training went well. In addition to Jian there were 5 new students, who included Daniel Mathews, Brett Parker, Daniel Ford, Alexandre Mah and John Dethridge. John was a student who had earlier won an AMC Medal while at Sale and Daniel also came from the country, Orange in NSW.

The above photo shows the team enjoying a typical meal in the YMCA, although from the clothing seemingly the last one before heading to Singapore Airport, from left and clockwise around the table, Hans Lausch, Daniel Mathews, John Dethridge, Daniel Ford, Brett Parker, Jian He, Alexandre Mah, Cheryl and Michael Evans.

David Hunt had left earlier for the Leaders' retreat, while the rest of us went down to the airport, in my case to see the team off to Mumbai. The party is pictured with from left Daniel Mathews, Alexandre Mah, Daniel Ford, John Dethridge, Jian He, Brett Parker, Michael and Hans.

Relaxing at the airport are Brett, John and Jian.

I went on to Seville. The stay in Singapore may have been well planned, but the weather was very hot and humid and the team did not condition itself, in the luxury of the air-conditioning for what was to come. The team found conditions in Mumbai pretty tough and all were sick at some stage or other except Michael, who claimed his secret was to keep with the cooked vegetables.

In the wake of this the team had a pretty fair result, coming 23rd, with two Silver Medals, to Jian and Brett, Jian being disappointed not to turn Silver to Gold, and three Bronzes, won by Alexandre and the two Daniels.

But there was to be a final drama. We did not know about Jian's susceptibility to a punctured lung, which had apparently happened once before. But in the conditions it happened again and Jian was not permitted by doctors to fly in a pressurised aircraft. He was confined for a further two weeks in hospital in Mumbai. Michael and Cheryl generously gave up their time to stay with him for the first of those weeks, but had to return. Jian's father eventually returned when it was time to bring him home.

1997 IMO Mar del Plata: The Dream Team

David Hunt continued as Leader, but Michael Evans passed on the baton to Angelo Di Pasquale, the former Olympiad who had shown strong leadership in the training and who was the natural person to take over if reverting to former Olympians as Deputies. I was not aware we had anything special in store from the 1997 team, but I think David knew the team was strong.

Daniel Mathews was the only student returning from the 1996 team so to me the team was no more experienced than others. The other students were Thomas Lam, Justin Ghan, Norman Do, Stephen Farrar and Jonathan Kusilek.

I travelled to this, my first real IMO, with Lois. I had been in Canberra when people started arriving for the 1988 IMO but had gone on to ICME and I can't count 1988. We started at Sydney airport and flew Ansett International to catch an Aerolineas flight from Auckland. Here is the Dream Team in Ansett's lounge, from left David Hunt, Jonathan Kusilek, Justin Ghan, Stephen Farrar, Thomas Lam, Norman Do, Daniel Mathews and Angelo Di Pasquale.

It is likely that first experiences are lasting, but this IMO had a big effect on me. It was well financed and resourced and we stayed in what I would call a 6 star hotel where there were gold-plated taps, maids attending our rooms twice a day, but more importantly this was one of only two IMOs I attended where we did not have a "moving day" (the other was Washington 2001), where we wasted a day packing, unpacking, waiting for buses, traveling, queuing for checking in again, while the leaders moved closer to the students after setting the exams.

The location where the leaders stayed was also interesting. Behind the hotel was a cemetery, where in apparent Latin country fashion, coffins are kept above ground level in family mausoleums, as the above photo shows.

The excursions were interesting and often involved a meal with beef cooked in a number of imaginative different ways, one involved a visit to a Fangio motor museum and some displayed the tango in the signature Argentine way, with appropriate black costumes and careful leg movements with the partners' legs stepping carefully and often around each other as shown above.

But the thing we were there for was the mathematics. It became clear from student feedback that our students were confident they had done well. The marking vindicated this. David and Angelo are shown marking together in what proved to become a strong partnership over the coming years and tremendous experience for the future for Angelo. Angelo became a marking rodent, finding marks in unlikely parts of student rough notes, a skill which stood him in good stead for the future, and to pass on to his later colleagues and successors.

It became clear as the marks of Australia and other countries were posted we had done astonishingly well. We had done very well on a non-standard question on the first day which rewarded innate ability rather than formal training and gained a higher score for the question than China, and on the second day our students had clean sweeps of questions 4 and 5. It then became clear that our team had made the top 10 for the very first time, and in fact were 9th. This was our dream team.

The AMC was scheduled for a date coinciding with IMO. I had brought the materials with me and for the first time the IMO teams from Australia, New Zealand and Singapore wrote the AMC together. They did not perform as well as they might, but this was after the rigours of two IMO exams and they can be fully excused. But it was a historic occasion, and one I repeated at later IMOs. I arranged an exam room with the organisers and the students from the three teams are shown above with Australia in the central column.

And there was to be the Closing ceremony, where the first time in an IMO there were to be two Australian Gold medals, won by Thomas Lam and Stephen Farrar. Thomas' score was in fact higher than that of any of the Chinese students. And to boot there were three Silver Medals, by Daniel Mathews, Justin Ghan and Norman Do, and the Bronze by Jonathan Kusilek to make a clean sweep. A photo of the two Gold Medallists appears in Chapter A2. The whole Australian delegation is shown after the Closing Ceremony, from left David Hunt, Justin Ghan, Angelo Di Pasquale, Daniel Mathews, Hans Lausch, Thomas Lam, guide, Peter Taylor, Stephen Farrar, Norman Do, Lois Taylor, Jonathan Kusilek and Sonia Hunt.

1997 Death of David Paget

1997 closed in November with the passing away of David Paget, who had led the teams and training through the early 1990s. Unfortunately I was not able to attend the funeral because I was in South Africa observing IOI, which we were considering, but Lois was able to attend in my place. A tribute to him can be found here.

1998 IMO Taipei

The Taiwan team had two survivors of the Dream Team in Stephen Farrar (Gold) and Justin Ghan (Bronze) from 1997. Stephen was the first Australian to make an attempt on a second Gold Medal. They were joined by Hiroshi Miyazaki, Justin Koonin, Andrew Cheeseman and promising Year 10 student Geoffrey Chu.

In those days we would arrive a day early for long distance flights but Taiwan was not considered sufficiently long distance. This was a mistake. The plane was delayed and this may have caused unnecessary stress. From then on we had these distances also down on the one day early list.

The team could not quite match the previous year's dizzy heights but 13th place was historically one of our best results. The medal haul of 4 Silver and 2 Bronze was also good, but disappointingly for Stephen he went back to a Bronze. The pressure of being possibility the first to get two Gold was possibly a factor, but anything can happen in any exam. The Silvers were won by the two Justins, Geoffrey and Hiroshi. Unfortunately I don't have any photographic record of this team at all, and I didn't attend.

1999 IMO Bucharest

The 1999 team to Romania comprised two survivors from 1998 in Geoffrey Chu and Andrew Cheeseman, Silver and Bronze Medallists respectively from that previous IMO. Joining them were two Canberra students (the second time this happened) in Andrew Sly and Kester Tong, also Kevin Sun and young Year 10 prodigy Peter McNamara.

In the weeks before the IMO the two Canberra students had an audience with local member for Fraser Mr Bob McMullan and are shown above with him. Mr McMullan was shadow Minister for Science, was well informed, and assured me that support for the maths and science Olympiads was bipartisan. For the first time it was decided to train the team in Rome, to acclimatise to the time zone, at a University where David Hunt had a link (Rome 3 University).This arrangement worked well and was to be repeated later.

The team is seen above on excursion, which went to Transylvania and included Dracula's Castle. Here they are at the King's summer palace, from left Angelo, Peter, Andrew, guide, Kevin, Geoffrey, Allan and Kester.

An excursion, and the Closing Ceremony were located at one of the world's most remarkable buildings, the grand palace built for President Ceausescu. I was told there is as much of the building below the ground as above, providing bomb shelters deep down.

David Hunt, I and Hans Lausch are shown at the Closing ceremony waiting for it to start.

The result was again outstanding, placed at 15th. The most remarkable result though was that of Geoffrey, who not only got a Gold but got it in style, finishing only one point behind the three tied equal top-scorers, all from Eastern Europe. The paper was probably the most difficult I saw and marks had to be handed out much more generously than normal to get any reasonable score spread. In fact Andrew's Silver Medal was won without a complete solution. Kevin and Kester both won Bronzes and ominously young Year 10 Western Australian Peter also won a bronze, a portent for big things to come in the following two years.

Geoffrey Chu receives his Gold Medal at the Closing Ceremony at the Ceausescu Palace from the President of Romania.

1999: Challenge debuts in Primary School

By 1999 there was a feeling in the Trust generally that it should make offerings in the Primary Schools. Whereas most of this eventually happened in the early 2000s, the Challenge actually debuted in 1999, with a 4-question primary paper. In its very first year 3000 primary students took up the Challenge, a rather remarkable start.