Students of the Jagiellonian University won the 18th International Mathematical Competition for University Students (IMC).

IMC is the most prestigious international mathematics competition for university students. This year it was held from July 28 to August 3 in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. 305 students representing 77 Universities from Europe, Asia, North America and South America participated in the contest, co-organized by University College London and American University in Bulgaria.

During the two-day competition, the students had to solve 10 problems from the fields of algebra, analysis, geometry and combinatorics. It was possible to get from 0 to 10 points for each solution. Depending on the number of points, the participants could receive "Grand First Prize", "First Prize", "Second Prize", "Third Prize" or an "Honorable Mention". If one or two students scored much more points than the rest, a special "Grand Grand First Prize" could also be granted to them. 

This year, the JU team consisted of four sudents: Maciej Gawron, Tomasz Kobos, Jakub Konieczny and Przemysław Mazur. Their academic supervisor was Jakub Byszewski, PhD. During the last eight years, the JU students achieved spectacular successes in the competition: only twice they did not find themselves among the highest prize winners.

This year, the Jagiellonian University team scored an impressive victory. Przemysław Mazur took first place and received Grand Grand First Prize, leaving other competitors far behind as the only one to solve all ten problems. Other participants managed to solve eight at the most. Other members of the JU team took the following places: Maciej Gawron: 13/14, Jakub Konieczny: 18/19/20, Tomasz Kobos: 26/27. They all received First Prizes.

Besides the individual ranking, there is also a team ranking, in which the result is the sum of the number of points received by three best students from a given team and the average score of all team members. Until this year, the JU took first place in the team ranking only once, in 2006. This year the JU scored a clear-cut victory with 292.75 points, outscoring Kyiv Taras Shevchenko National University (275 p.), the Eötvös University, Budapest (267.2 p.), Saint Petersburg State University, (260. 43) and the Israeli National Team (258 p.). What is worth mentioning, many leading universities send more than four students to participate in the contest, like the Kyiv University, which sent 14 participants altogether, although its official team consisted of only four.

The detailed results of the competition are available at: www.imc-math.org. The problems the participants were supposed to solve, together with their solutions, are soon to be published there too. Everyone is invited to have a go.