C.B.S Students bid for place on Irish Maths Olympiad Team
Aug 10, 2011 | Category: General
Three students from C.B.S. Charleville, Kieran Cooney, Shane Sheedy and Michael O’Donnell participated in the Irish second level school team contesting the 2010 International Mathematical Olympiad which took place in Kazakhstan last July. The qualifying Irish competition, which takes place each year in late April or early May, was held at the University of Limerick.
The Charleville students did very well in the first ever preparation contest, the Limerick Mathematical Olympiad 2010, which was held in UL. Charleville C.B.S. student, Kieran Cooney was awarded first place and his school mate Michael O’Donnell was placed joint third.
The Limerick event was run for the first time this year as a preparatory contest for the Irish Mathematical Olympiad. The best students in the Irish national Olympiad qualify for the International Mathematical Olympiad(IMO), the most prestigious mathematical contest for second level students in the world, which has been held each year since 1959.
The three Charleville students have undergone training courses from January in four classical subjects traditionally covered in Mathematical Olympiads i.e. algebra, combinatory, geometry and number theory, at the University of Limerick every Thursday evening under the guidance of mathematicians from UL and Mary Immaculate College Limerick, who volunteer to carry out this work for free in their spare time.
Participation in the IMO is cost free for the contestants. The host country takes care of accommodation, meals and local transportation for all participants. In the last number of years, the cost of the transport from Ireland to the host country was covered by the Department of Education and Science. However, due to the recession and the high costs of travel to Kazakhstan, the subvention obtained from the government this year is not sufficient to send a full team of six Irish students to the IMO in Kazakhstan without obtaining additional sponsorship.
Hence the trainer’s at all five Irish centres sought sponsors willing to help, so that the continuous efforts of the best of the mathematically talented Irish secondary school students could be honoured with participation in the IMO 2010. Fortunately this was forthcoming and all members of the Irishteam travelled to Kazakhstan to participate in theInternational Maths Olympiad 2010.