Chemical Education International, Vol. 1, No. 1, 19-20, Published in August 31, 2000

Maurice Cosandey
Ch.Etourneaux 1, 1162 Saint-Prex , Switzerland

The International Chemistry Olympiad is a yearly competition for high school students coming from more than 50 countries. Each country can send 4 candidates who must be younger than 20 years old and not registered yet in a university. All International Chemistry Olympiad happen in July. Problems to be solved are both theoretical and practical. After grading and comparing exams the best students get gold, silver and bronze medals, somewhat like in the "true" Olympic Games.

This competition was created in the former Eastern block for their proper use. It was strategically conceived as a good way for improving the sense of unity of its nations. It should be mentionned that riots had often broken up in the Eastern block: Budapest 1956, Praha 1968, not to speak of Berlin and Warsaw. Such a common competition for all Communist regimes should contribute to stabilize their youth. So different scientific olympiads were created for the nations of the Eastern block: mathematics in 1956, physics in 1960, always with a tremendous success.

The first Chemistry Olympiad was created in Prague 1968, then repeated the following years in Poland, Hungary, etc. In 1974 it was Romanians turn to host an Olympiad. It should be remembered that former Romania's leader Ceaucescu tried to dispute Soviet leadership over the Eastern block. For example he refused to take part to the common military manoeuvers. So he decided to innovate in the field of the Olympiads : he invited delegates from neutral countries. Sweden and Yugoslavia came to Bucharest, and did not get any medals. It was taken as a tremendous success for the socialist countries. The following Olympiad was in Hungary 1975 with new countries: Austria, Belgium, West Germany. And they all failed to get medals.

The reason of this failure was not political : it was the poor training of the Western students before the competition. The level of this competition is so high that only well trained students have a chance of getting a medal. So from then on all competitors managed to train their students and get better results. After 1977 medals were given to both Western and Eastern students.

The number of participating countries kept increasing every year. The rest of the world managed to gradually join the olympic adventure. The first Western Olympiad was in Austria 1980 with 13 countries. In 1999 51 countries were competing for gold, silver and bronze medals in Bangkok, Thailand.

The competition lasts two days: one day (5 hours) for practical work, and another day (5 hours) for solving theoretical problems. After correction and arbitration, the best 10% got gold medals, 20% got silver, and 30% bronze. The level of difficulty is every year higher. In 1999 it was about corresponding to a second year university course.

The best 1999 results were obtained by Timothy Jones from USA before Mario Tagfiazucchi from Argentina. The best nations were Korea, Iran and USA, with three gold medals each, before China, Chinese Taipei, Hungary and Romania, with two gold medals each. On the other end of the list, seven countries did not get any medals : Brazil, Czechia, Indonesia, Kuwait, Norway, Spain and Uruguay.

Thailand has made a special effort to host this Olympiad. The laboratories and grassware (burettes, pipettes, beakers) were brand-new. Each student had a special microscale kit for organic operations with 22 items more than $100 worth (Figure).

Hosting an Olympiad is extremely expensive for the organizing country which has to pay for all expenses of all participants. The cost of last Olympiads has been steadily increasing. See following data.

In order to help the organizing country a participation fee has been decided in 1998, which is calculated by multiplying * 100 tunes the number of years elapsed since lasting hosting an Olympiad. So if a given country has taken part to the Olympiads for 13 years without having hosted any, it must pay US$1300. This tax will provide about US$ 50 000 - 89 000 to any hosting country in the future.

The present Olympiad is in Copenhagen in July 2000. The next will be in Prague 2001, then Netherland 2002 Greece 2003, 2004 void : Turkey and Switzerland are both candidates, Taiwan 2005, and Korea in 2006.

Before closing this report it may be worth mentioning a side result of the Olympiads, namely the contact Of students from distant countries for a week or so. Friendship among students gives them an opportunity to get friends from all over the world. Ibis has produced some results. One of my students, for example, has created a travel agency with a Russian student he met during the Olympiad 5 years ago. This travel agency is still working today organizing language courses in Moscow and St-Petersburg and study travels through Russia and Siberia with great success. Long live the International Chemistry Olympiad !