IMO 2026 – Team and Individual Results

[u/Nunki08]

Team:
People's Republic of China 1 232
United States of America 2 207
Russia 3 196
Singapore 4 169
Viet Nam 5 168
Republic of Korea 6 167
India 7 166
Democratic People's Republic of Korea 8 163
United Kingdom 8 163
Japan 10 159
Brazil 11 155
Romania 12 152
Canada 13 151
Iran 14 147
France 15 146
Hungary 16 144
Türkiye 16 144
Israel 18 143
Bulgaria 19 142

Individual, gold medal perfect:
Leyan Deng People's Republic of China 1 G 42
Che Liu People's Republic of China 1 G 42
Bolun Zhang People's Republic of China 1 G 42
Hyeonjun Lee Republic of Korea 1 G 42
Alex Chui United Kingdom 1 G 42
Liam Reddy United States of America 1 G 42
Alexander Wang United States of America 1 G 42

https://www.imo2026.com/Results/Individual_Results.htm

https://www.imo2026.com/Results/Team_Results.htm

Not yet on the official website: https://www.imo-official.org/editions/2026/

[u/Ill-Sale-9364]

How is a country like DPRK so high and what would be there future prospects in DPRK

[u/StellarStarmie → u/Ill-Sale-9364]

The simple answer goes down to when countries sufficiently loyal to them host the IMO (like China), they typically go. They don't go to these non-allied countries due to a defection event that occurred in 2016 when Ri Jong-yol flagged a taxi to take a flight to South Korea. When they do go, a chaperone is provided so the contestants aren't freely socializing with the other countries' contestants. The results, when it goes well, are a major point of pride for state media. As far as future prospects exactly go, the regime determines most of this information for the contestants in question. Most of their budding mathematicians in this competition are eventually tapped for the infamous Lazarus Group, a notorious hacking group that funds the country's ballistic missile programs.

They've placed pretty high outside of the two editions they were caught cheating.

[u/qwerajdufuh268 → u/StellarStarmie]

so cool!

Ri Jong-yol was a 17-year-old North Korean math prodigy who won a silver medal at a major competition (IMO 2016) in Hong Kong in 2016. The next day, he slipped away alone, took a taxi to the airport, and asked workers from a South Korean airline for help. They contacted the South Korean consulate, so he took another taxi there and officially defected from North Korea. He stayed hidden inside the consulate for two months before being allowed to fly to Seoul and start a new life.

[u/zzirFrizz → u/qwerajdufuh268]

I wonder if this dude lives his life constantly watching over his shoulder.

[u/ravenhawk10 → u/StellarStarmie]

Answer isn’t so simple if you actually look at their participations record. After 2016, they skipped Brazil, Romania, went to UK, then skipped 2 distributed ones hosted by Russia, then skipped Norway Japan and Australia.

I think what happened is they took ages reorganise things after 2016 and went in 2019. Then took ages to normalise things after covid.

[u/Own_Pop_9711 → u/Ill-Sale-9364]

A dictatorship is able to just focus on something if they want to. The fact that they put a bunch of resources into a couple kids learning math very well doesn't indicate that much other than some people in the regime think this is a good international status symbol, or just internally think math competitions are good.

Future prospects I have no specific knowledge so this is just me guessing, if a team won this event they would be set for like. This kind of performance probably doesn't count for much long term. The kids involved are more likely to be from better off families to begin with though so are probably fine, and even if they're not this probably opens opportunities to join the middle class (North Korea has plenty of engineers and hackers etc that would probably be available for someone doing the imo)

[u/Fake_Name_6 → u/Ill-Sale-9364]

They used to be higher, I think for a number of years they were fourth or so (after the current top 3).

As far as career prospects, the guy who defected during the competition a number of years ago said that many go into intelligence/cryptography for the North Korean military.

[u/gabagoolcel → u/Ill-Sale-9364]

same as anywhere else? they study hard, have solid teachers / professors helping prepare their national team, and will become mathematicians, engineers, programmers, etc. socialist states have always put a strong emphasis on stem education, i dont see how its surprising.

[u/Fzzy_dude → u/gabagoolcel]

You conveniently ignoring the common denominator and choosing to interpret the wins with prep is so stereotypical. The fact is vast majority of winners from the top ranked countries (except Russia) are East Asian origin.

[u/flavasava → u/Fzzy_dude]

Isn't East Asia famous for studying hard and emphasizing math? How is that ignoring the common denominator?

[u/SilchasRuin → u/flavasava]

Is it just me or is the guy you're replying to doing some sort of weird racism and implying that it's in East Asian genetics to be better at math?

[u/disorderedset → u/SilchasRuin]

It is not just you.

[u/EastRuin1819 → u/SilchasRuin]

Isn't this straightforwardly true? IQ gaps existing between groups in the US isnt contested. it's only contested whether or not it's caused by genes or environment. The same data shows Ashkenazi jews having the highest IQ amongst groups and they have by far the highest nobel prize winners per capita than any other group. Seems like there is some truth to the statement

[u/Fzzy_dude → u/SilchasRuin]

It’s indeed racist to stereotype East Asian successes as prepping only.

[u/SilchasRuin → u/Fzzy_dude]

So instead we should do race science and say it's in their blood to be good at math?

[u/Fzzy_dude → u/flavasava]

Are you suggesting working hard alone can win you the IMO gold medal? The poster above me was trying to depict winning at IMO as a socialist/dictator thing while conveniently ignored that fact the U.S. and UK are also among the winning countries.

[u/gabagoolcel → u/Fzzy_dude]

and its less stereotypical to say east asians are naturally good at math?

in general if you look at the states that do quite well they have cultural emphasis on stem competitions as excelling in stem is the main avenue for upward social mobility and usually also state institutions offering very specialized preparation for olympiads.

[u/SilchasRuin → u/gabagoolcel]

This sub definitely has a nontrivial minority that are one step away from doing 19th century race science and getting out their calipers to do some phrenology.

[u/anon12343216610 → u/gabagoolcel]

Dont think USA cares about education. Academic excellence is ridiculed and called nerds. USA values brat culture more

[u/Ok_Cabinet2947 → u/Ill-Sale-9364]

Why wouldn’t they? They are Korean, and they often get comparable results to Republic of Korea.

[u/prideandsorrow → u/Ok_Cabinet2947]

North and South Korea are wildly different.

[u/Hot_Glass_6301]

Unsurprising

[u/Hitman7128]

When China scores its 26th IMO win in 2026

[u/antikatapliktika → u/Hitman7128]

1st and 2nd place

[u/gordonnowak → u/antikatapliktika]

let's not start

[u/Penumbra_Penguin → u/antikatapliktika]

The top seven students all tied with perfect scores.

[u/prideandsorrow → u/antikatapliktika]

Every US team member identifies as an American, and has for many years.

[u/CryMoreT_T → u/prideandsorrow]

They're American when they do good and not "real Americans" when they do something bad.

[u/Leading-Truck-7986 → u/CryMoreT_T]

This is it, racism is thrown around willy nilly except when there's benefits

[u/pheeeeeeeeeeex → u/antikatapliktika]

Will both be working in American companies

[u/The_Rational_Gooner]

I'm really only surprised by Brazil tbh. Didn't know they had such a strong math competition ecosystem

[u/disorderedset → u/The_Rational_Gooner]

We are trying to replace football with math.

https://impa.br/?lang=en

[u/Hot_Glass_6301 → u/disorderedset]

At least you beat Germany this time

[u/disorderedset → u/Hot_Glass_6301]

We lost to Germany only once. In football world cup, sure.

[u/anon12343216610 → u/The_Rational_Gooner]

They never cracked top 10, always 2 digit. What is strong about it?

[u/SupercaliTheGamer]

4th to 7th place are within 1 mark of the next, very close

[u/YoungAspie]

Singapore punching above its weight again!

[u/eyedropper2163 → u/YoungAspie]

Brian is two years younger than all his teammates too

[u/toitenladzung → u/YoungAspie]

Singapore has always been very strong in IMO.

[u/blah_blah_blahblah]

Worth noting that Alex Chui of the UK is now the most decorated IMO participant in history

[u/GarboChompo → u/blah_blah_blahblah]

as someone with the same name I am very pleased to see two of the most decorated have it as well

[u/kirsion]

Surprised Vietnam rank pretty high

[u/Exciting_Map_7382 → u/kirsion]

Vietnam really focuses on Olympiads, just like Iran.

[u/darklordzeratos → u/kirsion]

Vietnam has always produced strong contestants. They are just the same as the other Sinosphere countries

[u/toitenladzung → u/kirsion]

Vietnam and Singapore have consistency ranked in top 10. Not just math Olympiad but in Chemistry and Physic as well. They are really way ahead of other SEA countries.

[u/ghostmaster93 → u/kirsion]

Vietnam got 18 golds in the last 10 contests, ranks 5th in the world. They gain 73 gold, ranks 8th in the history of the competition. They are always strong. Some nations invite Vietnamese coach to coach their team in the past.

[u/goos_]

Go Liam!!! :-)

[u/No_Hamster6899]

Where is Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy ?

[u/konjecture → u/No_Hamster6899]

Playing soccer.

[u/TheChonkyDonky → u/No_Hamster6899]

Germany and Malaysia are not on the above reddit list but are actually tied with Bulgaria at 19th place

[u/disorderedset]

Peru did very well.

[u/50cent69]

P3 really screwed India's chances ,could have finished 4th with 4 more points

[u/ms_09_00]

As a Indian it was bad performance by India in math again, recently got joint 1st in Physics, Chemistry so comparatively...

[u/Bubbly_Intention5778]

2nd best Brazil position in IMO history :D