Vietnamese student attains perfect score at IMO

Ngo Quy Dang, a 12th grader, and Pham Viet Hung, an 11th grader at the High School for Gifted Students, Hanoi University of Science, Vietnam National University (VNU), both won gold at this year’s IMO, held in Oslo, Norway from July 6 to 16 and gathered 589 contestants from 104 countries and territories.

Dang attained the perfect score of 42 while Hung got 39. The score for an IMO gold medal is 34.

This marks the first time since 2003 that a Vietnamese contestant hit the perfect IMO score.

Apart from Dang, nine other competitors also scored 42 points. Six hail from China and the remaining three, from Japan, Ukraine, and Afghanistan.

This is not the first time Dang has brought home a gold medal from an IMO contest.

In 2020, he was the first 10th grader in Vietnam to take part in such a contest, scoring 36.

Six Vietnamese students attended this year’s IMO and the other four won two silver and two bronze medals.

Overall, Vietnam ranked fourth on the full table of medals, up 10 places compared to 2021.

China arrived in first, followed by South Korea and the U.S.