Bella Chen: EGMO 2025 Report

Although I had known for months that EGMO was coming up, I procrastinated and did not pack until the last day. In a way, it hadn’t felt real until I was physically at the airport and meeting with Josie and my teammates. This was a problem because Kosovo was snowing the week before, and I realised when I was at the airport that the thickest piece of clothing I had was a woollen cardigan. Nonetheless, the fact that I had bought my passport meant that I felt comparatively well prepared.

Two days before the flight, I ran through the 2016 EGMO mock. It went quite well and raised my hopes. I did another, the 2020 mock, which I proceeded to absolutely flunk. This decreased my hopes. I realised that my performance this year was going to entirely depend on the questions offered, since my overall performance on previous mocks ranged everywhere from one question to five.

April 8 – 9th

After we (Josie, Sophie, Isabelle, Kyla, and me) meet up, we head to the check in. Brena, our deputy leader, is not present because she currently lives in Australia. We begin our trend of being stopped at every single airport at the security scan, where I am patted down for a tissue in my pocket.  This is an awkward experience for all involved, because parental consent is needed to pat down children and the fact that I am fourteen is not believed. Two random women are stopped and asked if I am their daughter. I am questioned if I am travelling with Isabelle, my presumed sister. Luckily, after the third statement of my age and fourth assurance that they have consent to check me, I am allowed to pass.

I made a valiant attempt to revise on the plane to Hong Kong. Unfortunately, it remains just that, an attempt. When I try to read PST, I fall asleep. When I try to study game theory, it turns into a tick-tack-toe game with Isabelle. On my second attempt, it turns into a chess game/tutoring session where I somehow managed to lose all my pieces other than my king while the algorithm is in easy mode. I conclude that fate does not intend for me to study on this flight and turn to my teammates. Sophie and Isabelle spend around two hours trying to keep the little green monster alive. I join them, but it tragically continues to die in little puffs of green smoke. Overall, I get around two hours of revision out of the ten hours on the plane.

During the layover in Hong Kong, I grind a few past problems with Isabelle over our bowl of noodles. The time zones are extremely messed up from our flights, but I am tired and spent the majority of the second flight to Istanbul asleep. Geometry revision is of great assistance - whenever I wake up, half an hour of that sends me right back to sleep.

The final flight from Istanbul to Kosovo is short, only two hours. By the time we arrive in Kosovo, it is 8am in the morning and our entire group is mentally dead.

Kosovo is much colder than New Zealand and I regret once more not bringing a coat. Instead, I decide to layer up two jackets, a decision which leaves me unable to properly move my arms. We spend the first half of the day dallying between the children’s playground and the elderly exercise place, where we attract some funny looks from the locals. The afternoon is spent playing board games, where it is discovered that I suck at subterfuge. Brena arrives just as we are going to bed.

April 10th

We wake early and get breakfast at the bakery. Kosovo is surprisingly cheap to us sufferers of inflation - breakfast for six people is less than three euros (six dollars). We spend the next 4.5 hours on the EGMO 2014 Day 2 mock. It is meant to simulate real exam conditions, which means that we lose our names. Kyla becomes NZL1, I get NZL2, Isabelle NZL3, and Sophie NZL4. I take three hours to solve Q6 and is fairly sure that it isn’t a fake solve. That hope would come to be false. I spend around 45 minutes each on Q4 and Q5 where I make progress in the correct direction but fail to draw any substantial conclusion.

Having finished the exam, we take a quick break where we manage to convince ourselves that we had failed. We are distracted by lunch, before we resume with marking our scripts.

My overall score is 0-1-2 (compared to 7-7-0 on Day 1). For Q6, my expected score of 7 turns into 5, then 2. Unfortunately, it is a functional equation, and I die a little inside as I realise that my induction failed because I did not take the extra two lines to prove f(x)=0’s uniqueness. I also realise that I had solved half of Q5 already and that I could have claimed at least 4 more marks if I had spent a bit longer bashing it.

Marking the papers develops within me a sense of commiseration for the markers that is sure to disappear over the following days. I lie in bed pondering my life decisions for a while before we head out to a pasta restaurant for dinner. We spend the rest of the evening playing Avalon and laughing at my poor playing skills.

April 11th

Day three begins with my discovery of really thick hot chocolate with croissants. It is arrival day, which means that we must walk to Hotel Parliament. We say goodbye to Josie, since she will be arguing for our scores and we must be separated from us for the next few days. We are the first ones there and are greeted with EGMO merch by our guides. This includes a backpack labelled EGMO 2025, a water bottle, a pen, and T-shirt, and some booklets with information about our schedule and the city. I resolve to not use any of the merch (except for the T-shirt) for the duration of our stay since everyone has identical products. (Spoiler: this will turn out to be a good idea because people do end up taking the wrong stuff.)

We play games with the guides who are very friendly. Starvation is combatted, and our guide Aria takes us out for a tour along with the Kyrgyzstan team during which we get ice cream. On the way back, we see a snail which suspiciously resembles Turbo. Isabelle and I sit on the ground and begin praying to it (her? him? We remain unsure of Turbo’s gender) for good scores, attracting some weird looks from the other countries. We are very good representatives of New Zealand.

April 12th

Today is the day of the opening ceremony. We wake early and head to the arena, which will be the same venue that we will also use for the exams and the closing ceremony. Before the official start, we get a chance to meet the other countries. Australians run around sticking koalas on people. We hand out New Zealand themed pencils and take photos with the various other teams.

The ceremony itself mainly consists of a bunch of speeches and some videos from the various sponsors. Citadel Security hands out some expensive prizes, while Jane Street prepares a Welcome to EGMO video. We stand and wave as our country’s names are read out and the spotlight falls on us.

During the afternoon, we are once again accompanied by Kyrgyzstan for an excursion. We head to a cathedral and are shooed away because it is occupied by praying people. Aria decides to instead lead us to the National Library, which we are told is an extremely significant building. We also get to visit the Heroine sculpture, which is made out of thousands of symbols representing rape survivors from the Serbian war. Opposite to it stands the famous NEWBORN monument, a representation of Kosovo’s independence. We are given the opportunity to buy some souvenirs and snacks for the exams and I take opportunity of the cheap prices to get some pins.

Turbo has not changed position since we spotted him yesterday. We choose to believe that he (she?) is simply in a prolonged hibernation.

April 13th

Even though the entire purpose of the trip to Kosovo is the exams, I had somehow managed to shut it away from my mind. A trauma response, perhaps. Either way, my anxiety at the beginning of the day quickly fades after being stuck outside for 1.5 hours as they slowly process the contestants.

The actual paper was NAG, although some mistake from Swiss MO leads to us believing it to be NCG for a while. I solve Question 1 quite easily, figuring out the solution within the first 1.5 hours with a bit of bashing of the small cases. What you have to do is to identify that all even cases worked, and that there cannot be a prime factor larger than three when N is odd. I do this by modular arithmetic, setting a positive integer T = 3^k * p₁ * p₂ *…. * p_n where k is the highest power of 3 and p₁… p_n are the other prime factors of N. I then use two cases {(N-T-1), (N-T+2)} and {(N-T-2), (N-T+1)}, bashing them together under mod 3 to prove by contradiction that:

1. They are coprime to N
2. Their sum is also coprime to N

The writeup itself takes another 1.5 hours, so three hours pass before I am finally satisfied and move on to Q3. In some bizarre spark of optimism, I attempt to get some marks by angle chasing a geo diagram. Long story short: I fail, wasting forty minutes.

I lastly move onto Q2. Q2 is one of those questions where, with enough small cases, you can figure out the correct answer pretty quickly. I hypothesise an extremely unrigorous case construction (always goes back to odd) which is technically correct but lacking in proof or explanation. I get points for the correct answer, but not much beyond that.

I finish the exam moderately satisfied with my performance. I discover later that my efforts have led to a score of 7-1-0.

That night, our dinner is sponsored by Citadel Securities. The venue is wedding style, complete with wine glasses and buffet style food. There are lots of options and it is all very fancy. We meet and get to better know a bunch of other girls – the British, Aussies, Norwegians, and all. Everyone is extremely friendly, fast friendships are forged, and Instagram details are exchanged, not necessarily in that order.

It was amazing to see all the countries gathered together, dancing together, and having fun under a shared passion for maths. In normal social circumstances such as school, maths isn’t a valid interest, and having an interest for it is seen as strange even amongst the more academically inclined. Spending time with this group of people helped show that science, technology, maths - that those sorts of things could be fun, could be interesting, that it was a belief shared by many.

We exchange national anthems on the bus back to our hotels where New Zealand once again manages to demonstrate all of the passion with exactly none of the skill. We are the loudest, the most out of tune, and possibly the only team that manages to forget a large portion of the words. Credits to Sophie - the two of us were the loudest and I admit to being the most out of tune. 

As we return to the hotel, a fire is discovered where we saw Turbo that morning. It (he? She?) is cooked – in the most literal way. This would represent what Q5 would do to us in the following days.

April 14th

I absolutely flunked on Day 2 of the exams. Q1 was geo, my supposedly strongest area. I misread the question however, connecting BS and CR instead of CS and BR. This affected the existence of point T, meaning that I spent hours chasing for a solution which didn’t even exist. Three hours in, I realised my mistake and finally drew the correct diagram. It helped exactly zero. I finished Day 2 with no questions answered, which was quite disappointing.

If nothing else, this experience has taught me to never box myself into any particular area of maths. I, a supposed geo main with a preference for combi flunked the geo Q4 and combi Q5, while making progress on the number theory Q1 and the algebra Q2. I learnt that I’m not bad at any area – it all depends on my mindset and usefulness of my brain that day.

We had lunch and head off to the Jane Street Hub. I collect the merch - T shirt, cards, puzzle book, and head over to the bracelet section. I spend two hours on one bracelet, which breaks seven times. I spend thirty minutes on the other one, which breaks a lot less.

My teammates leave after that, but I join some of the other girls in solving the puzzles. We manage to solve all four of them, which was nice because I manage to attain four pins.

Jane Street did some advertising, as did the other companies that sponsored EGMO. It gave us lots of insight into possible career options for science and technology-based careers - Jane Street offers programs for the older kids, we watched advertisement videos, and the companies explained what they did, and how they did it. It sounded really interesting and definitely opened my options into careers a lot more. Previously, I wasn’t really thinking about science/technology as career options, since the only options I saw were becoming a teacher or engineer, neither which held much appeal for me. Jobs like stock analysers, security people - those kinds of jobs held more appeal to me, seeming a lot more fun.

Excursions: April 15th and 16th

For the two days after the exams, we’re taken on many excursions where we explore the highlights of the country. On the 15th of April, we spend the day on an excursion to Prizren, another city in Kosovo. We hike up a steep hill to a fort and spend around two hours clambering over the walls – possibly giving our guide Aria a few heart attacks. 

Initial results come out this afternoon, a product of a sleepless night by our leaders. I find out that I got eight marks, all from the first day. I am a bit disappointed that I didn’t manage to medal, but I am somewhat comforted by my Honourable Mention.

We are taken to Pristina Mall the next day and decide to do the escape rooms along with go carting. I want to note that we initially ask for a nice and mind-boggling escape room that is not scary. However, they end up all being taken so we end up in a Haunted House style escape. We spend half the time clinging to each other and screaming - it is a completely dark room and we are given one light. Frequent jump-scares and spooky sound effects result in a fantastic display of our great problem-solving abilities – unable to solve anything without hints and resorting to trial and error. Sophie and I are volunteered to go first in entering every room, since Sophie had suggested the escape room. I, by the way was an innocent bystander accused on false terms.

Go Karts are next. I do four laps and manage to crash the thing five times, four in the same place. NZL1 crashes into me once as well. My driving strategy is simple: going at first speed when the track is straight then more or less stopping at turns, before going full speed again. I come in seventh place out of eight people and conclude that New Zealand should fear the day I get my licence.

We get KFC and ice cream for lunch, because the New Zealand team believes in balanced meals.

April 16th: Closing Ceremony and Party

We head back to the hotel to change back into our formals and bus to the arena for the fourth time. There, I sit with Sophie to watch the power struggle for space on stage as each award recipient’s name is read out. Congrats to NZL3 (Isabelle) for getting a bronze medal! Congrats to NZL4 (Sophie) for getting an Honourable Mention!

Something interesting I observed is that the music literally rose one pitch for each ranking of reward. Honourable mention = E, Bronze = F, Silver = G, Gold = A, Perfect Score = B. If it has any deeper meaning, it is lost on me.

The party begins with an international game of volleyball with a balloon. Following that, pop music begin playing and everyone started to dance. (I say dance in the loosest of terms – we jumped up and down while singing/screaming). Brena joins me in a Belgium Circle Dance, which quickly moves outside due limited space. However, once we are outside, I decide that I am more interested in stealing the Australian flag than in continued dancing. I am chased by AUS1, but my comrade UNK4 abandons me and I am sadly captured. A US flag is draped over me, and I am thus inducted into the American cult. However, in the spirit of the poem Do Not Give Up that we heard at the opening ceremony, I do not give up. As soon as I regain my captor’s trust, I steal the Australian flag again, this time with the aid of the South Africans, the Americans, and my old ally UNK4. At this point it is essentially Capture the Flag, complete with shouting, tackling, and running.

We gather at Hotel Sirius to play a game of mafia, which can be summarised as pure chaos. I am killed by the vigilante, despite being a harmless villager. We lose the game.

April 17th

It is somehow already departure day. We haven’t been here long, but this entire thing has been so intense it feels like its been forever since we landed. Once again, we head to a bakery for breakfast, but everyone is so tired at this point we sort of just collapse in our hotel.

We go out for one last tour of the city after we eat and return to the cathedral that we were shooed away from. We pay for tickets to go to the top of the tower, but I am allowed to go free of charge because ‘Kids under 10 go free.’ I am a product of capitalism, so I do not argue, but I am personally offended.

We play Avalon for the rest of the afternoon, before we sadly have to say goodbye to our guides and head to the airport. I am braindead for the entire trip back.

Final Words

Overall, EGMO was a fantastic experience. Kosovo was an amazing city, full of beautiful sights, good food, and exciting activities. Everyone at EGMO was so kind and welcoming and really helped make this into an event I will never forget. The entire experience, from start to finish, was incredibly inspirational and a real eye opener into the possibilities that Maths Olympiad has to offer. Even the seemingly mundane stuff – the board games, the late night mafia session, the group singing/dancing, the walks, the airport window shopping, the photos – were so memorable because of the unique experience of exploring new places with fun company and a shared passion.

Thank you Jane Street, for sponsoring this entire thing and making this all possible. You contribute so much to the Olympiad maths program in New Zealand from the training camps to the competitions themselves, so thanks for helping to fund this experience.

Thank you to all the other contestants, who were so relatable and interesting to talk to. You helped elevate this experience so much, and the experience of being surrounded by so many talented girls from all around the world helped me feel like I was part of a community that was much greater, a community which gave me so much more motivation to explore maths, which helped show that maths was something so much more interesting and fun than what we are taught in school.

Thank you so much Josie and Brena, for taking us there and for giving up your time (and sleep schedule) to fight for our marks. This trip was amazing, and your organisation and consistent support was what made this whole thing possible. Thank you to our wonderful guide Aria, for everything you’ve done. You helped to make Kosovo so much more approachable – thank you for always accompanying us and for always being a kind presence. Thank you to my teammates Isabelle, Sophie, and Kyla for being so kind and funny and for always being there to talk with. You always kept me entertained through your antics, whether that was trying to shock me or trying to not kill Clide. Thank you so much to my parents for always providing consistent support and for being so kind and encouraging.

One more thanks for NZL3 and Josie for providing half of my photos!