Taiwan’s budding young Einsteins will return home with a stellar five gold and silver medals from this years 44th International Physics Olympiad, the Ministry of Education said yesterday.
The three golds and two silvers mean that not one of the team members scored lower than a silver, competing as individuals among 381 students from 83 countries.
Students were put through their paces in an intense practical and theoretical examination lasting a total of 10 hours, engineered to test their knowledge of physics, logic and their ability to conduct experiments.
Gold awards went to Chang Wen-yu (張文于) of Sacred Hearts High School in Yunlin County, Lo Yu-kai (羅鈺凱) of Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School and Lo Tsung-yu (羅宗祐) of National Wu-Ling Senior High School, with Chang finishing fifth place in the contest overall.
Silver medals went to Hsueh Ching-chung from National Taichung First Senior High School and Yen Chuan-yi of National Changhua Senior High School.
President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), Vice President Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and Minister of Education Chiang Wei-ling (蔣偉寧) sent messages of congratulation to the winners in Denmark where the event was held between July 7 and yesterday
Students will receive as prize money NT$200,000 for a gold medal and NT$100,000 for a silver medal, together with recommendations for admission to a Taiwanese university for physics-related study.
The ministry said the five students had been selected from 3,007 applicants and were trained by a team of university professors, led by Chia Chih-ta (賈至達) of National Taiwan Normal University.
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