Mumbai: The Indian team of six high school students has achieved a historic feat at the International Mathematics Olympiad (IMO) 2024 , securing the best ever performance since India's debut in 1989. Rushil Mathur, Ananda Bhaduri, Adhitya Ganesh, and Kanav Talwar clinched four gold medals for India, while Arjun Gupta secured a silver medal and Siddharth Choppara received an honourable mention. The team, led by Professor Krishnan Sivasubramanian (IIT-Bombay) and Rijul Saini (former IMO medallist; from Homi Bhabha Centre For Science Education, or HBCSE) as the deputy leader, finished fourth among 108 participating countries, with over 609 students in the competition.
The Indian team scored an impressive 167 points, just one mark behind South Korea, with the US, China, and South Korea taking the top three spots. This outstanding performance marks India's best result in the Olympiad in terms of medals won and rank attained, surpassing the previous best rankings of 7th in 2001 and 1998. For each team member, mathematics is their primary passion.
Rushil Mathur from Powai, who will pursue mathematics and computer science at the University of Oxford for his undergraduate studies, shared his love for the subject, stating, "While I always enjoyed mathematics as a middle-schooler, I was first introduced to its vastness and beauty when I began preparing for the mathematics Olympiad. The thrill of solving Olympiad problems -- which I didn't even know how to approach at first -- hooked me onto mathematics." Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated the 2024 team on their remarkable achievement via a post on X, calling them an inspiration to young people.
The team is expected to return to India and will be honoured at HBCSE on Tuesday. The IMO is an annual world championship mathematics competition for high school students, held in different countries since 1959, with this year's event taking place in Bath, United Kingdom..
