The 18-year-old Song didn’t seem overly excited about his win, though he was happy with it. He was the only student in the competition to manage a perfect score in the grueling two-day exam, though fellow Canadian Kevin Sun also won a gold, as did others.
“I felt like I was very lucky to solve all the problems, but at the same I’m not sure if any of the problems gave me trouble,” Song said. “I was definitely very happy at the same time but, I mean, it was just whatever happened.”
Song has now competed for this country at the IMO six times, winning five golds and one bronze; he holds the world record for medals at the IMO and is ranked by the IMO as the top student mathematician in the world. This year is his last as a student and the perfect score, rarely achieved, marks the occasion nicely.
The math whiz now studies at a prestigious private school in New Hampshire but grew up in Waterloo, Ontario.
Overall, Canada placed ninth in the competition out of 104 countries; it is the third time Canada has managed to make the top 10 in the past four years of competition.
“Math Team Canada has, once again, performed exceptionally well at the IMO,” Bill Sands of the Canadian Mathematical Society told media. “These students have worked extremely hard to compete on the world stage and they can take great pride in having represented Canada with such great performances and international achievements.”
The USA won the competition, China, which had won the previous two years, was second and South Korea third.