The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), the world championship in mathematics for students under 20 years of age, was held from July 10-22, 2009 in Bremen Germany for the 50th time. There were 565 contestants from 104 countries.

A country can send a team of six contestants to this competition and the team should have a deputy leader and a leader. Contestants have to solve six tough problems in Geometry, Number Theory, Algebra and Combinatorics. These topics in mathematics are in general taught at secondary schools in most countries in the world. But only Geometry among these topics is taught to some extent in Sri Lanka. Also, the problems at IMO are much harder compared to GCE Advanced Level Combined Mathematics problems and they always involve new ideas previously not found in other problems. Training and motivating for this kind of competition is quite hard.

But two students of the Sri Lankan team, Lajanugen Logeswaran from Highland Central College, Hatton and Buddhima Gamlath from Royal College, Colombo 07, won Bronze medals at the IMO. Unfortunately Lajanugen missed the Silver medal by two points and Sankalpa from Taksila Central College, Horana, missed the Bronze medal by two points. Also Tharindu from St. Sebestian’s College, Moratuwa; Dileepa from Ananda College, Colombo 10 and Sankalpa from Taxila Central College, Horana, won Honourable Mentions for completely solving at least one problem.

The Sri Lankan team was led by Chanakya J. Wijeratne with Thameera P. Senanyake as his Deputy.

The Sri Lankan team got a total of 74 points and was ranked 50th above Sweden, Norway, Spain, Denmark, Austria, New Zealand, Finland, Ireland, Philippines, Pakistan, Bangladesh and 43 other countries - the best IMO performance by a Sri Lankan team so far beating the previous best performance of 71 points in the 47th IMO in Slovenia.

All those countries have well funded IMO selection and training programmes conducted throughout the year. For example, Pakistan team is selected and trained by following a long process. First a selection test consisting of 70% MCQs and 30% essay type problems is given to about 10,000 students. MCQ part of the test is machine graded. Then 50 students are selected for the next round, they are given training in a few residential camps under the guidance of a professional foreign IMO coach. After each residential camp there is a selection test and the pool is down sized, and after the last residential camp the team is selected. These programmes are well funded. But Pakistan team could only win one Bronze medal and get a total of 21 points.

The Sri Lankan team was selected and trained by Sri Lanka Olympiad Mathematics Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to popularizing mathematics in Sri Lanka, without any sponsorship from the government or the private sector, and foreign IMO coaches. The selection process of the Sri Lankan team to the IMO started with the Sri Lankan Mathematics Competition 2008. More than 3500 students participated. The competition was conducted, set and marked by volunteers. The Sri Lankan team had two one day workshops on IMO problem solving before the Sri Lankan Mathematics Challenge Competition 2008. Top 40 students at the Sri Lankan Mathematics Competition 2008 and the top 9 students at the Vidusara Competition were invited to the Sri Lankan Mathematics Challenge Competition 2008 and 17 students were selected from this competition to IMO Team Selection Competition 2009. After the team was selected they were given training at the Department of Mathematics, University of Colombo from June 1 to 27, 2009 everyday from Monday to Saturday from 8.30 to 4. They were also given training in a residential training camp at the National Institute of Education, Maharagama from June 28th to July 8th.

The training of the team was mainly done by Supun T. Samarakoon, Thameera P. Senanyake and Chanakya J. Wijeratne on a volunteer basis. Students used the following books published by the Sri Lanka Olympiad Mathematics Foundation in their training as text books such as Challenging Maths, Introduction to Olympiad Maths and Easy Olympiad Maths published abroad are not available and not accessible:. It is hard to imagine that all this have been achieved only through the volunteer work.

The IMO program in Bangladesh has many sponsors from both the private and the government sectors, and not only their students get free air passage they also have money to send an observer – observers have to pay for their accommodation in addition to air passage! And Bangladesh is planning to host the IMO in 2020. It is high time that sponsors come forward to fund the IMO program in Sri Lanka.