MEDIA RELEASE — January 12, 2017

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Canadian Mathematical Society

OTTAWA, Ontario — Three students have received top national honours in a three-way tie after competing with 6,550 students across the world in Canada’s premiere national mathematics competition on November 3, 2016. Participants had to solve 12 problems on the three-hour exam.

Thomas Guo (Olympiads School, North York, Ont.), Rui Ming Xiong (Western Canada H.S., Calgary, Alta.) and Daniel Zhou (Centennial Collegiate, Saskatoon, Sask.) have been recognized as the top Canadian students in the 21st annual Canadian Open Mathematics Challenge (COMC) sponsored by Sun Life Financial.

Grade 8 student Guo and Grade 12 students Xiong and Zhou each achieved a perfect score of 80/80 and earned gold in the most prestigious category of Best in Canada Overall and were granted the title of Canadian COMC champions.

The 2016 COMC silver and bronze awards for Best in Canada Overall were presented to Ben Wei of Waterloo Collegiate Institute and Victor Wang of Sir Winston Churchill Secondary School.

All five of the top-scoring students will advance to the Canadian Mathematical Olympiad (CMO) for a chance to earn a spot on Math Team Canada and compete in the 2017 International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) this summer.

Robert Woodrow, Chair of the Canadian Mathematical Society’s (CMS) COMC Committee, commented on an increase in registrations this year and the evidence of mathematical talent provided by many students.

Approximately 100 of the top Canadian COMC students will be invited to write the Canadian Mathematical Olympiad (CMO) in March.

As the first in a series of mathematics competitions held by the CMS, the COMC is intended to provide a broad range of students with interesting problems to solve, and is one of the entry points that leads to the selection of Math Team Canada – a group of Canada’s top students who participate at the IMO.

The 58th annual IMO will be held this summer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, July 12-23, 2017.

Registration for the 2017 COMC competition will open in September 2017.

Sponsors and partners of the 2016 COMC included Sun Life Financial, RBC Foundation, Maplesoft, Nelson Education, Government of Manitoba, Government of Nova Scotia, Government of Ontario, Government of Prince Edward Island, Government of the Northwest Territories, Centre de recherches en mathématiques (CRM), Pacific Institute for Mathematics (PIMS), Fields Institute, McLean Foundation, Popular Book Company, and CAE Inc.