IOI 2002
Yong-In, Korea

  by Don Piele, USA

By Sunday evening, August 18, 2002, the US delegation had all arrived safely in Korea and were bussed to Kyung Hee University site of IOI 2002. The weather was a slow drizzle but we were too tired to care since it was very late and almost impossible not to doze off on the bus ride. Some in our group had been traveling for twenty two hours. Our delegation consisted of thirteen members.

Name

Title

Don Piele

IC Member

Greg Galperin

ISC Member

Brian Dean

Team Leader

Russ Cox

Deputy Leader

Constance Wheeler

Invited Observer

John Creecy

Invited Observer

Jacob Burnim

Contestant 01

Adam D'Angelo

Contestant 02

Liu Tiankai

Contestant 03

Alex Schwendner

Contestant 04

Linda Piele

Visitor

David Schwendner

Visitor

Brook Randal

Visitor

 

Monday
Our delegation met up Monday morning for breakfast and our first tour of IOI 2002 -- the Korean Folk Village. It was built in 1970 as an open-air folk museum reconstructing a traditional Korean residential area from the late Chosun Dynasty. Tiankai Liu was able to demonstrate his skill at writing Korean characters to create: "Korea is beautiful and so is my girl friend." Very diplomatic.

The opening ceremony was held in Renaissance Hall in the Central Library for the 277 contestants, and the leaders, and guests for a total near 600. It began with a short report on IOI 2002 by Ha-Jine Kimn, chairman of the organizing committee. There were two messages, one from Yookun Cho, president of IOI 2002, and one from Yung Bok Chae, the Minister of Science and Technology for Korea.

Besides the congratulatory message from Jari Koivisto, chairman of IOI 2002, there was a short presentation by the youngest contestant Zviad Metreveli, aged 13, from Georgia. At the end he gave his hat to the Chairman of IOI 2002, Ha-Jine Kimn.

The contestants were sent off to their rooms by 8 pm while the team leaders approved the three problems for the first competition day and began the long task of translating them into their native language. Some did not finish until the wee hours of the morning.

First Competition Day
After breakfast the contestants were bussed to the library, and led to their computers. They were given five hours to work on the three problems for round one. The word after the time was up was that they were a very challenging set of problems. We met up with the team on the front steps of the library and they agreed. Team leaders Brian Dean and Russ Cox were challenged to come up with a good approach to some of the problems and they didn't have to program them.

Linda, Connie, John, David, and Brook spent the day touring Kyonggi where they walked around the Suwon World Cup Stadium and visited the Ho-Am Art Museum. The visitors were treated each day to a different tour.

The weather was about perfect for Korea this time of year -- sunny and in the high 70's. It had rained continuously the previous two weeks.

In the evening, the contestants and leaders were shown examples of Korean culture and had an opportunity to learn Taekwondo the martial arts of Korea.

Wednesday

 

It is customary between competition days to have a day off. Today was that day. The tour busses (about 20 in number) headed out in the morning for an hour-long trip into the heart of Seoul, Korea for the first stop at the ‘TechnoMart’. This is a 12 story high-tech multimedia center with a research and development area, electronics stores, multiplex cinema, and finance center.

 

After lunch we were off to the Korean War Memorial where they house the relics, military hardware, weapons, and other military paraphernalia from past wars – especially the Korean War. All of the names of those who lost their lives in that conflict were there. Linda found the name of a schoolmate’s brother who she remembered was killed in Korea.

 

At 8:00 pm the delegation leaders met in the general assembly to select the final three problems for the second day of the competition.

 

Thursday

The second set of problems was appreciated by the competitors more than the first. Everyone came out feeling relieved it was finally over. When we got the results back they were all very close together – around 200 points out of a possible 300 points on round 2. On the first day, Tiankai Liu, had a higher than our average score because of his success on one problem which he did better than all other competitors at IOI. So his total number of points (415) for the two days was ahead of the others on our team by over a hundred points.  The other three Jacob, Adam, and Alex were close together with totals just under 300 and combined with day 1, good enough for medals.

 

 

Overall, they all did a wonderful job just getting medals in a very difficult competition. The problems used by the Koreans were very original and forced the students to think outside the box. Tiankai showed his extraordinary ability to do just that by coming up with an original solution that surprised even the judges. He was the only one in the competition to get full marks on the problem called XOR. His winning solution was only 100 lines of code, about a third as long as expected and it outperformed the judges' solution.  Remember, this is only one of three problems he had to solve in five hours and the judges have spent weeks finding their best solution.

 

The visitors were off on a tour of Seoul stopping off at the Changdeokgung Palace and the shopping district called Insa-Dong.

 

Friday

 Today our tour began at Everland -- Korea’s answer to Disney World.  In addition to the usual rides and amusements, it had beautiful gardens, a zoo, and a very popular safari, where we got a chance to see wild animals up close. The whole park is geared for the family and especially the young kids. The rides are kinder and gentler than the “scare your pants off” rides at Great America. We seemed to have the whole place to ourselves – no lines and no waiting. We dined in the Dutch Village with real china, metal knives and forks, and smiling, beautiful food servers -- quite a contrast from Great America.

 

 

After lunch it was on to the ‘Icheon Pottery Village’ where, besides touring a museum filled with priceless works of pottery from the 11th century, we watched an artist transform a hunk of clay into a beautiful urn with a handle and water spout.
 

 

Saturday
This afternoon the closing ceremony began promptly in the Victoria theater at Everland. It opened with a non verbal music performance by Duderock.

 

Dignitaries included Dr. Sang-Joo Lee, Deputy Prime Minister of Education and Human Resources,  Dr. Yung Bok Chae, Minister of Korean Science and Technology, and Mr. Suek Namgoong, president of patronage for IOI 2002.
 

 

Awards were given to Peter Heyderhoff, Emilia Ratobylskaya, Wen-Hu Wu, and Stanislaw Waligorski for their distinguished service to IOI since it's beginning in 1989.
 

 

After a performance by Show-Taekwon, and a few more speeches, the stage was cleared for the awarding of the 68 bronze medals, 47 silver medals, and the 23 gold medals. Here is the list of the medals winners in rank order.

 

National Name Rank Medal
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF Wanyeong JUNG 1 GOLD
POLAND Pawel PARYS 2 GOLD
BULGARIA Velin TZANOV 3 GOLD
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Tiankai LIU 4 GOLD
ROMANIA Radu BERINDE 5 GOLD
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF Kyung Yoon OH 6 GOLD
RUSSIAN FEDERATION Petr MITRITCHEV 7 GOLD
CHINESE TAIPEI Yin WANG 8 GOLD
ROMANIA Daniel Octavian DUMITRAN 9 GOLD
LATVIA Aleksandrs BELOVS 10 GOLD
RUSSIAN FEDERATION Petr KALININ 11 GOLD
CHINA Yifei ZHANG 12 GOLD
ESTONIA Martin PETTAI 13 GOLD
CHINA Qiming HOU 14 GOLD
CHINA Wei YU 15 GOLD
SLOVAKIA Peter BELLA 16 GOLD
IRAN Mohammadhossein BATENI 17 GOLD
LATVIA Andrejs IVANOVS 18 GOLD
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF Hyung-Sul KIM 19 GOLD
CZECH REPUBLIC Josef CIBULKA 20 GOLD
ISRAEL Yair CHUCHEM 21 GOLD
SWEDEN Daniel ANDERSSON 22 GOLD
VIET NAM Khai TRAN QUANG 23 GOLD
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Jacob BURNIM 24 SILVER
RUSSIAN FEDERATION Dmitri PAVLOV 25 SILVER
INDONESIA Widagdo SETIAWAN 26 SILVER
UKRAINE Petro LUFERENKO 27 SILVER
FRANCE Benjamin GAILLARD 28 SILVER
SLOVAKIA Tomas DZETKULIC 29 SILVER
CANADA David ZHANG 30 SILVER
VIET NAM Hieu NGUYEN VAN 31 SILVER
HUNGARY Peter PALLOS 32 SILVER
ROMANIA Marius Victor COSTAN 33 SILVER
TURKEY Sedat GOKALP 34 SILVER
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Adam D'ANGELO 35 SILVER
CUBA Ronny LÓPEZ TRUJILLO 36 SILVER
YUGOSLAVIA Dejan KOLUNDZIJA 37 SILVER
BULGARIA Nikolay NIKOLOV 38 SILVER
CROATIA Luka KALINOVCIC 39 SILVER
POLAND Bartosz WALCZAK 40 SILVER
YUGOSLAVIA Aleksandar ZLATESKI 41 SILVER
AUSTRALIA David GREENAWAY 42 SILVER
GEORGIA Nicholas JIMSHELEISHVILI 43 SILVER
CANADA Matei ZAHARIA 44 SILVER
NETHERLANDS Tijmen TIELEMAN 45 SILVER
BULGARIA Georgi TSANKOV 46 SILVER
NORWAY Geir ENGDAHL 47 SILVER
POLAND Karol CWALINA 48 SILVER
CHINESE TAIPEI Cheng-Yu LEE 49 SILVER
RUSSIAN FEDERATION Pavel MAVRIN 50 SILVER
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Alex SCHWENDNER 51 SILVER
HUNGARY Gabor PELLADI 52 SILVER
IRAN Mohammad MOHARRAMI 53 SILVER
LITHUANIA Viktor MEDVEDEV 54 SILVER
CHINA Decheng DAI 55 SILVER
ESTONIA Andres LUUK 56 SILVER
TURKEY Semsi Cihan YUCEL 57 SILVER
IRAN Hamed AHMADI NEJAD 58 SILVER
CHINESE TAIPEI Shu-Chun WENG 59 SILVER
DENMARK Bjarke ROUNE 60 SILVER
SINGAPORE Jiquan NGIAM 61 SILVER
ESTONIA Mihkel KREE 62 SILVER
SINGAPORE Heng Ping Christopher MOH 63 SILVER
SLOVAKIA Jozef TVAROZEK 64 SILVER
COLOMBIA Oscar RODRIGUEZ 65 SILVER
CROATIA Ivan SIKIRIC 66 SILVER
FINLAND Markus OJALA 67 SILVER
UNITED KINGDOM Paul JEFFERYS 68 SILVER
AUSTRIA Lukas STADLER 69 SILVER
BELARUS Maksim OSIPAU 70 SILVER
SLOVAKIA Radovan BAUER 71 BRONZE
SWEDEN Erik BERNHARDSSON 72 BRONZE
POLAND Marcin MICHALSKI 73 BRONZE
THAILAND Wittawat TANTISIRIROJ 74 BRONZE
GERMANY Benjamin DITTES 75 BRONZE
SOUTH AFRICA David Jacques CONRADIE 76 BRONZE
CROATIA Lovro PUZAR 77 BRONZE
KOREA, REPUBLIC OF Heon JEONG 78 BRONZE
UKRAINE Andriy STASYUK 79 BRONZE
FINLAND Veli PELTOLA 80 BRONZE
FINLAND Olli-Pekka KAHILAKOSKI 81 BRONZE
THAILAND Piyawat LAMSAM 82 BRONZE
MOLDOVA, REPUBLIC OF Dumitru CIUBATII 83 BRONZE
NETHERLANDS Bram KUIJVENHOVEN 84 BRONZE
UNITED KINGDOM Nicholas KREMPEL 85 BRONZE
BULGARIA Veselin RAYCHEV 86 BRONZE
BRAZIL Rafael TEIXEIRA PAULINO 87 BRONZE
GERMANY Alexander HULLMANN 88 BRONZE
LITHUANIA Vilius NAUDZIUNAS 89 BRONZE
ARGENTINA Pablo DAL LAGO 90 BRONZE
CANADA Marcin MIKA 91 BRONZE
ITALY Stefano MAGGIOLO 92 BRONZE
VIET NAM Nhat LAM XUAN 93 BRONZE
ESTONIA Hendrik NIGUL 94 BRONZE
SPAIN Tomas LLORET 95 BRONZE
HUNGARY Gabor SIMKO 96 BRONZE
SRI LANKA Chethiya ABEYSINGHE 97 BRONZE
SLOVENIA Matej JAN 98 BRONZE
CUBA José David RODRÍGUEZ VELAZCO 99 BRONZE
BELARUS Sarge ROGATCH 100 BRONZE
IRELAND Martin ORR 101 BRONZE
FINLAND Olli-Pentti SAIRA 102 BRONZE
IRAN Siavosh BENABBAS 103 BRONZE
SWITZERLAND Ruben ANDRIST 104 BRONZE
CHINESE TAIPEI Tsung-Chieh CHANG 105 BRONZE
UKRAINE Volodymyr TKACHUK 106 BRONZE
ARGENTINA Alejandro DEYMONNAZ 107 BRONZE
BRAZIL Daniel BUENO DONADON 108 BRONZE
HONG KONG, CHINA Man-Hon CHAN 109 BRONZE
LUXEMBOURG Thierry STEINBERG 110 BRONZE
THAILAND Vasan CHIENMANEETAWEESIN 111 BRONZE
HONG KONG, CHINA Siu-On CHAN 112 BRONZE
ARMENIA Davit HAYKAZYAN 113 BRONZE
BELARUS Aliaksei SIKORSKI 114 BRONZE
ARGENTINA Diego Alejandro GAVINOWICH 115 BRONZE
SWEDEN Dan NILSSON 116 BRONZE
UNITED KINGDOM Adam BULL 117 BRONZE
TURKEY Mustafa Onur KILAVUZ 118 BRONZE
CZECH REPUBLIC Pavel CIZEK 119 BRONZE
CROATIA Marko ZIVKOVIC 120 BRONZE
LUXEMBOURG Michel CONRAD 121 BRONZE
SOUTH AFRICA Heinrich DU TOIT 122 BRONZE
SRI LANKA Nayana P.SOMARATNA 123 BRONZE
HONG KONG, CHINA Koon-Ho WONG 124 BRONZE
NETHERLANDS Marijn KRUISSELBRINK 125 BRONZE
LITHUANIA Martynas KRIAUCIUNAS 126 BRONZE
YUGOSLAVIA Nikola TODOROVIC 127 BRONZE
YUGOSLAVIA Aleksandar ILIC 128 BRONZE
INDONESIA Randy SUGIANTO 129 BRONZE
ISRAEL Noam RAFHAEL 130 BRONZE
GEORGIA Alexander TARKHNISHVILI 131 BRONZE
MEXICO Jorge DEL RIO 132 BRONZE
ISRAEL Ariel GUTMAN 133 BRONZE
TURKEY Osman CELEP 134 BRONZE
MOLDOVA, REPUBLIC OF Constantin JUCOVSCHI 135 BRONZE
MOLDOVA, REPUBLIC OF Dumitru CODREANU 136 BRONZE
PORTUGAL David RODRIGUES 137 BRONZE
BELARUS Raman DZVINKOUSKI 138 BRONZE

 

Tiankai Liu a sophomore from Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, NH, captured a gold medal. The other three members of the US team won silver medals: high school seniors Adam D’Angelo also from Phillips Exeter Academy, and Jacob Burnim, from Montgomery Blair High School in Silver Spring, MD, along with Alex Schwendner, a home schooled freshman from Austin, Texas.

 


 

Burnim, captured the highest silver medal during the competition. Schwendner, a freshman, was the youngest team member from the US ever to receive a silver medal.


I expected we would get medals but didn’t expect 3 silver and one gold. Tiankai  had the fourth highest score in the whole contest and this was his first year at IOI.

In addition to his gold medal Liu was awarded the Sens Q prize, newly established by Samsung Electronics for the contestant who solved the problems the most creatively. His solution to the hardest problem was so original it surpassed the judges' solution as well as those of all the other competitors. His ability in mathematics gave him the insight that others missed. He received a Samsung laptop computer as his prize.

 

 

Finally, it was time to hand over the flag from Korea to the United States. Greg Galperin and I went up on stage to receive the flag from Ha-Jing Kimn. I could not resist the golden opportunity to take two pictures of the audience from on stage.
 

It is traditional in Korea to get a group to smile by asking them to say, kimchi. So I took the Kimchi shot first.
 

 

In the US, and especially in Wisconsin,  it is traditional to say "cheese." I took the cheese shot second.

 

 

 

There may not be much difference between a kimchi smile and a cheese smile but there will be a big difference between IOI 2002 and IOI 2003. For starters, our budget will be about 1/5th of the Korean budget of 2.2 million dollars. In Korea, IOI 2002 was a national event supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Korean Information Science Society, the Korean Science and Engineering Foundation, with sponsorships from Samsung, Microsoft, and many other companies. In the United States, the USACO is run by 6 volunteers with no support from the government.

 

Once the ceremony was over, the flag was passed from Korea to the United States.
 

 

A grand show and farewell banquet awaited the participants in the Rose Garden of Everland. Once again, no expense was spared in putting on an extravagant show with top named performers.

 

 

Korea went all out for IOI2002. Their grading system worked flawlessly. They had very good, well prepared problems and everything was well organized. My impression of Korea is a country on the rise. They rank number one in the world in primary and secondary education and they have embraced technology with a passion. They bussed in all 70 finalists in their national  informatics competition to see the final awards ceremony and have a holiday at Everland. As a nation they want more young people to study informatics early and they support it. In the years to come I will not be surprised to see "Made in Korea" on our software too.

 

We spent our final day in Korea near the Inchon airport. We took a ferry across the bay to Wolmido and visited the famous statue of General Douglas MacArthur in Jayu (Freedom) Park. His invasion at Inchon in 1950 turned the tide in the Korean War. The next morning we were up early so we could check in as soon as possible and get the best seats on our Korean Air flight back to the US.

 


Participation in the IOI 2002 was made possible by USENIX our sponsor for the USACO.