It was obviously not fate nor chance nor luck but a mathematician in them that made the Philippine teams yield a dozen of gold medals making them stand taller among their equals in the recently concluded 2012 International Young Mathematicians’ Convention (IYMC) held in City Montessori School, Lucknow, India on November 30 - December 5, 2012.

Drawing 226 participants from 15 countries: Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Iran, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russia, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, and the United Kingdom, the contest placed the Pinoy math aces second to none as they garnered the most number of gold medals in the individual competition. Standing in the far second was India with 7 gold medals while Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia got 4, 3 and 2 gold medals respectively.

In the team contest where 75 international teams were clustered and color coded into 5 groups of 15 teams, the Philippine teams E and B were champions in the orange and pink groups respectively. As such, the PH team E ended up to be the junior level overall performance champion while PH team B was slated 2nd runner up.

The striking performance of PH team E in the individual, team and relay competitions made them uncontested to emerge as the OVERALL CHAMPION while PH team B, an all-girl team, was crowned Overall 2nd runner-up in the junior level.

The IYMC, organized by City Montessori School, Gomtinagar Campus, Lucknow, is divided into two levels: junior level (junior secondary, that is, for grades 9 and 10) and senior level (senior secondary, that is, for grades 11 and 12). The Philippines had sent no participants for the senior level.

The competition also had events like Relay Round, Mathematical Quiz, Mathematical Fair and Workshop. The PH Team E blew the contest away by being the champion and PH team B 1st runner-up in the junior relay contest. PH Team A was placed 2nd runner up in the junior math quiz which dealt on math principle and common knowledge.

Dr. Simon Chua, MTG president, glad with the result said, “the achievement of our math wizards reaping 12 gold medals in this contest is a great way of wrapping up the period of math contests for this year.”

To all Filipino participants in the 2012 IYMC headed by the team leader Mr. Renard Chua, the promising MTG coach/trainer and officer, our warmest congratulations to you for bringing home the pot of gold.