European Physics Olympiad announces results for 2018
June 5th, 2018
On June 1, the second European Physics Olympiad for school students announced the results of this year's competition in a ceremony at the Zaryadye Park in Moscow. EuPhO 2018 featured 115 participants from 23 European countries, as well as 40 team leaders and 50 volunteers from Moscow State Linguistic University and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), which hosted this year's contest.
The medals were awarded to 48 students, with eight earning gold, 16 silver, and 24 bronze. Estonia's Richard Luhtaru is the overall winner of the competition, with the best score for the experimental problem. Leonticа Sebastian from Romania got the special prize for his theoretical problem solution. In an unlikely turn of events, Croatian student Ilija Srpak received an impromptu special prize for honesty. Srpak, who was mistakenly assigned five extra points, requested that his score be reconsidered, which normally implies a claim that the results were underestimated. Impressed by this move, the jury decided to reward the student's integrity.
Nine Russian students took part in the event, with seven of them winning gold, silver, or bronze medals. The gold went to 10th-grader Vladimir Malinovskii from St. Petersburg. Two other 10th-grade students, Andrey Panferov from Moscow and Vladislav Polyakov from St. Petersburg, took silver medals. Bronze medals were awarded to four 10th-graders: Elisey Sudakov from the Volgograd region, Alexey Kudrinsky from the Perm region, Arina Kuznetcova from the Moscow region, and Andrey Lyovin from Moscow. Fyodor Knyazev, also from Moscow, received a fourth-degree honorary certificate.
MIPT Vice Rector Artem Voronov commented on the results of EuPhO: "Such contests help strengthen the connection between the world's leading centers for gifted children. MIPT is one of such centers in Russia focusing on physics and math. We are glad to serve as a link between Russia and Europe in the sphere of education for gifted children."
"All of the participants have gained valuable experience, and the best students were recognized with awards, which are well-deserved," Voronov added. "I am sure they will all succeed in their further studies of physics. EuPhO winners, runners-up, and the contest participants in general are welcome to study at MIPT and ultimately do their research here."
Valeriy Slobodyanin, the coach of the Russian team, told us what makes the competition special for his students: "For us, the competition is an opportunity to take those 10th-grade students who showed the best results in the All-Russian Physics Olympiad to the international level. The problems they have to solve in the European, Asian, or other international olympiads are somewhat different from those common in the national contest. The earlier they figure this out, the better for them. The experimental stage proved a bit too hard for them, but mind that wave optics is part of the 11th-grade curriculum. The first Russian national team won five medals—one gold and two silver and bronze—and the second team earned two bronze medals and an honorary certificate. Notably, the scores of the two silver medalists were very close to gold."
The ceremony was attended by Pavel Zenkovich, Russian deputy education and science minister; Mustafa Muezinovich and Vasile Soare, ambassadors extraordinary and plenipotentiary of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Romania to Russia; Jaan Kalda, the president of EuPhO; and Artem Voronov, MIPT's vice rector for pre-university education.
The general sponsor of the olympiad is the Ronin Partners group. Other partners of the event are Rusnano's Fund for Infrastructure and Educational Programs, and the English language school Skyeng. The sponsors provided the special prizes of this year's competition.
Provided by Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology