The International Mathematics Competition is organized by University College London and hosted by the American University in Bulgaria. The 2018 edition  took place in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, from the 22^nd of July to the 28^th of July, 2018. Participants were  first-year to fourth-year Mathematics students from around the world and in total 351 students and 70 teams participated.

Highest ranked Dutch University team

Since 2010 the UvA has been sending a team of students to participate in the International Mathematics Competition (IMC), and this year the UvA team came in 17^th place and was thus the highest ranked Dutch University team. Also it is especially worth mentioning that Ivo Kroon was the first freshman UvA student ever immediately winning a silver medal. We are incredibly proud of the performance of the whole UvA team and the effort they put into this competition.

The UvA team comprises: Mick Gielen and Wouter Rienks: gold medals; Mike Daas, Tim Henke, Oscar Schoen, Ruben La and Ivo Kroon: silver medals; Siebe Verheijen and Reinier Sorgdrager: bronze medals; Jim Wittebol and Lies Beers: honorable mentions.

Preparation

The students from the UvA team were trained for this competition during the honours course “Training IMC 2018”. The best candidates in the course were selected to take part in the competition in Blagoevgrad. They used the summer months to train and prepare for the competition. The UvA team was sponsored by the Faculty of Science and the Korteweg-de Vries Institute. Dr. Klaas Pieter Hart from TU Delft was of great help in defending the points of the Amsterdam team.