Alex Song, with the beard, centre, and Jacob Tsmimerman in the back with the cap made of the Canadian Math Team that competed in the International Math Olympiad in Thailand last week.

Left to right: Jinhao (Hunter) Xu, James Rickards (Observer), Kevin Sun, Jacob Tsimerman (Leader), Zhuo Qun (Alex) Song, Lindsey Shorser (Deputy Leader), Alexander Whatley, Michael Pang, Yan (Bill) Huang are shown at the International Mathematical Olympiad in Thailand on July 16, 2015.
Photo Credit: CP / HO-Canadian Mathematical Society

Alex Song and the Canadian Math Team

Alex Song is the Chinese-Canadian who achieved an astonishing victory at the recent Mathematical Olympiad, held this year in Thailand.

Team Canada leader, Jacob Tsimerman, an associate professor of math at the University of Toronto, says Alex won his fifth Gold medal, more than anyone ever in the 66 year history of the event. Tsimerman says ‘that’s kind of exceptional’. It puts Song in first place on the Olympiad’s Hall of Fame.

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Added to this achievement, Alex Song was also the only contestant to get a perfect score.  Tsimerman says this year the contest was significantly harder. The competition takes places over two days; three questions the first day, and three the next. Tsimerman said the middle questions each day were the most difficult.

“He’s always been a pleasure to have around, he’s always been very creative and very helpful and very enthusiastic about math”

The Canadian team, selected through a process that includes the winners of the Canadian Open Math Challenge, trained for two weeks at the Banff International Research Station, in Alberta.  The six-members, prepared with a mock exam, several lectures and lots of practice.

Jacob Tsimerman, himself a first-place finisher at the 2004 Mathematical Olympiad, said the Canadian Mathematical Society changed the coaching of its ‘mathletes’, by going with former competitors and recent graduates instead of older professors who are not as familiar with the Olympiad environment. The shift has put Canada in the Top 10 for the third time in the past four years.

As for Alex Song, Tsimerman said,  “He’s always been a pleasure to have around, he’s always been very creative and very helpful and very enthusiastic about math”  He advises Canadians to remember his name. “He is destined for greatness,”

When asked about the event Alex Song responded to Maclean’s magazine saying, “I didn’t do too much… it was Thailand.  We mostly just sat in the hotel, talked to the other teams, played some games with them and went on excursions.”

The 18 year-old, who grew up in Waterloo, Ontario, is now going on to Princeton, in New Jersey, to focus on pure mathematics to prepare for mathematical research.

Tsimerman says Song has expressed interest in coaching some of the future Canadian teams.

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