North Countries Universities II Mathematical Competition was held in St. Petersburg

North Countries Universities II Mathematical Competition organized by ITMO University was held from 20 to 22 April 2015. The competition was attended by teams from Russia and EU countries The first place in the team competition took the students of the Mathematics and Mechanics Faculty, St. Petersburg State University, the ITMO University students took the second place, and the third were the students from The Jagiellonian University (Kraków).

Previously, ITMO University regularly held the Northwest Mathematical Olympiad.The status of the international one the olympiad got in 2014.

"The North Countries Olympiad is a conventional name, of course: the doors of the university are opened to everyone who loves math. It doesn't matter where one came from," Yury Popov comments, the head of the ITMO University Natural Sciences Faculty Mathematics Department, one of the competition organizers.

Only one foreign team was able to visit the last year's olympiad - the team of the Estonian city of Tartu.In 2015, five teams from the European Union joined the list of participants: universities students from Poland, Estonia, and Belgium came to St. Petersburg.

Only one team of three people from a university can take part in the competition.Individual applications are registered as well.The competition is held by all the canons of international competitions: the official language is English; the results appear on the website during the tasks checking.

19 teams’ participants competed in the framework of the olympiad this year.Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk, the main mathematical centers of the country, represented Russia in the competition.

Dmitry Krachun, the 2nd year student of St. Petersburg State University, who collected the most points, told about his team: "We participated in a similar competition last year and took the first place in the team competition. In general, our team shows good results in different competitions. In particular, we have recently performed in the Czech Republic, where both of our members got the gold medals. In addition to studying at the university, we have to train additionally - we train regularly, solve many olympiad tasks."

"The tasks were difficult, but we did well, took the second place. Students did not have the official olympiad in mathematics before. Now there are about five major international competitions, and our is one of them. Also, it is the only one that is held on the former Soviet Union territory," Pavel Pettai says, the senior lecturer of the ITMO University Natural Sciences Faculty Intelligent Technologies in the Humanitarian Field Department, one of the coaches of the mathematics team.

The olympiad was appreciated by the foreign guests as well.

"We came here for the first time, and we liked all very much. I hope to attend the event the next time as well. Seven tasks were given, more than usual in such competitions. The level is high: it is practically impossible to solve all the tasks during the allotted time. I came to the competition with three students, one of which eventually received a I degree diploma," Jakub Byshevsky says, the head of the Polish team from The Jagiellonian University.

Curators hope that next year there will be much more people to attend the North Countries Universities III Mathematical Competition.After all, regardless of the final results, it is most important to love math, as the organizers say.