MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 24th July, 2021) Russian high-school students from the national team that won five gold medals at the International Physics Olympiad in Vilnius have shared with Sputnik what made their triumph possible and what plans they have for the future.
Russia's entire five-man team took gold in Vilnius, repeating the country's winning streak from last year.
The 2021 contest was organized by Vilnius University but took place online in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and consisted of two rounds, which took place on Monday and Wednesday. The event gathered more than 450 schoolchildren from 90 countries to show their skills in solving both experimental and theoretical problems. Russia was represented by Matvey Knyazev, Denis Ismagilov, Danila Samodelkin, Artemy Novikov, and Nikolay Kononenko.
This is not the first time Russian schoolkids proved their mettle this year, as the Russian team of eight won the record number of gold medals at the Asian Physics Olympiad in May.
"Dear Denis, Matvey, Nikolay, Artemy, Danila! I congratulate you on your brilliant, victorious performance at the International Physics Olympiad. I am sincerely happy that the Russian team once again showed the highest level of training, and conclusively proved the leadership of the national school of physics," Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his message of congratulations.
The Russian team was formed of students who excelled during the national physics olympiad and then went through training camps at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, as well as qualifiers at the Sirius educational center.
The path to victory was a long and arduous one, beginning in August 2020 and involving approximately 1,000 hours of studying, according to Danila Samodelkin.
"We were studying for a while. We began holding a series of training and training and qualification camps since last August. Per our estimates, we spent 1,000 hours on preparation this year, and this is not counting unsupervised studies," Samodelkin recounted.
Artemy Novikov said that in order to better prepare for the competition he went through the problems from the olympiad's previous editions, which allowed him to become more confident and have a better grasp of the format.
"I was already trained for the Asian [Physics] Olympiad, so I already had the knowledge of physics. For the IPhO 2021, I just solved [problems from] the previous olympiads to have confidence and understand the format," Novikov explained.
Both young men agreed that the International Olympiad did not beat the Asian one in terms of difficulty.
"No, this olympiad was not more difficult than the past ones. The main difficulty was not in a physical phenomenon's complexity, but in converting rather cumbersome [mathematical] expressions," Samodelkin noted.
According to Novikov, the International Olympiad actually has lower difficulty, which presented a challenge of its own as Russian contestants are at their best when dealing with hard problems.
Both kids have already decided where they will continue their education, picking the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
"I was not even thinking about getting into a foreign university, because, as I see it, the education process [abroad] is not done quite right. It is focused on practical use and not on comprehensive knowledge, which is more important in my opinion," Novikov mentioned.
For Samodelkin, the most troublesome aspect of the admission process was registration on admission offices' websites.
"I am not yet planning on studying or living abroad. I got admitted into the Department of General and Applied Physics at the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology," the young man stated.
