International Mathematical Olympiad - History

History

The first IMO was held in Romania in 1959. Since then it has been held every year except 1980. That year, it was cancelled due to internal strife in Mongolia. It was initially founded for eastern European countries participating in the Warsaw Pact, under the Soviet bloc of influence, but eventually other countries participated as well. Because of this eastern origin, the earlier IMOs were hosted only in eastern European countries, and gradually spread to other nations.

Sources differ about the cities hosting some of the early IMOs. This may be partly because leaders are generally housed well away from the students, and partly because after the competition the students did not always stay based in one city for the rest of the IMO. The exact dates cited may also differ, because of leaders arriving before the students, and at more recent IMOs the IMO Advisory Board arriving before the leaders.

Several students, such as Teodor von Burg, Lisa Sauermann and Christian Reiher, have performed exceptionally well on the IMO, scoring multiple gold medals. Others, such as Grigory Margulis, Jean-Christophe Yoccoz, Laurent Lafforgue, Stanislav Smirnov, Terence Tao and Grigori Perelman, have gone on to become notable mathematicians. Several former participants have won awards such as the Fields medal.

In January 2011, Google gifted €1 million to the International Mathematical Olympiad organization. The donation will help the organization cover the costs of the next five global events (2011–2015).