Qi Qi ’17 and US Team Take First at European Girls Math Competition

James Lin ‘18, Alec Sun ’17 and Yuan (Yannick) Yao ‘17 land perfect individual and team scores at AMC 12.

April 14, 2017
U.S. team European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad

Qi Qi, left, with members of the U.S. European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad team (l to r): Angela Deng, Wanlin Li, Siye Zhu.

Qi Qi ’17 brought home gold for her perfect individual score at the European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad, and helped drive the U.S. team to place first among 44 teams from around the world. Qi was one of only two entrants who received a perfect score on the two-day exam, held recently in Zürich, Switzerland. 

Sherry Gong ’07, a veteran math competition champion, served as team leader for the U.S. team.

Qi is building on successes from last year when she was the highest scoring female contestant at the International Mathematical Olympiad, winning a silver medal. She is poised to return to the IMO in 2017, where she is likely to compete for team Canada.

Perfect Scores on American Mathematics Competition 12

In the run-up to selections for 2017 IMO teams, three Exeter students — James Lin, Alec Sun and Yuan (Yannick) Yao — gained perfect individual scores and a perfect school team award for their performance at the AMC 12, held in February. The three Exonians are among a handful of competitors to attain perfect scores from more than 60,000 who participated. 

“I believe this is the first perfect team score in this national event since 1994,” says Math Instructor Zuming Feng, longtime coach and leader of the U.S. IMO team, and mentor to Exeter math students since 1995. 

Yao also gained a perfect score at last year’s IMO and was a member of the winning U.S. team, which placed first out of 109 participating countries. He is poised to compete again this year for the U.S.

Lin recently brought home a silver medal from the Romanian Master of Mathematics competition. He competed for team U.S., which earned 6th place overall. 

Last year, all three boys placed in the top 12 of the United States of America Mathematical Olympiad, the final round of AMC competition.