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\title{Observations on EGMO 2015}
\author{Joseph Myers}
\date{April 2016}
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\section*{Introduction}

The \href{https://www.egmo.org/egmos/egmo4/}{fourth} European Girls'
Mathematical Olympiad (\href{https://www.egmo.org/}{EGMO}) was held in
Minsk, the capital of Belarus, between 14 and 20~April 2015.

I participated in this event in my usual roles of IT and Coordinator,
travelling with the UK team but not as part of the UK delegation.  The
UK team consisted of Olivia Aaronson, Rosie Cates, Kirsten Land and
Joanna Yass, with the leader being Jo Harbour and the deputy leader
being Jenny Owladi.  More about the EGMO~2015 experience from a UK
perspective may be found in Jo's report as leader\footnote{Not
  available as of April 2016.} and in the team's student
report.\footnote{Also not available as of April 2016.}  These
observations should be read as a supplement to those reports, in the
spirit of Geoff Smith's Observations on
\href{https://www.imo-register.org.uk/2011-report-geoff.pdf}{IMO~2011}
and
\href{https://www.imo-register.org.uk/2012-report-geoff.pdf}{IMO~2012}.
\href{http://math.uni.lu/~olymp/EGMO2015Report.pdf}{Pierre Haas's
  report from a Luxembourg perspective} may also be of interest.

\section*{Diary}

\paragraph*{14 April}

I meet Jo at Cambridge station, Jenny at King's Cross and the team at
Heathrow.  There are no direct flights to Minsk from London today, so
we are flying with Lufthansa via Frankfurt.

British government travel advice warns against consuming various local
food in Belarus, including dairy products, because of fallout from
Chernobyl, so Jo has brought a week's supply of milk for making tea.
A concerned parent, meanwhile, has supplied us with an extra suitcase
full of bottled water, in case this is unavailable in Minsk.

We check in, remarking on how three of the four team members have the
middle name Rachel, have lunch and watch with concern as the delay on
our flight to Frankfurt steadily increases.  Eventually the flight
takes off at the time it should be landing in Frankfurt.  On arrival
in Frankfurt we find we have missed our connection.  Lufthansa offers
alternative flights via Vienna early the next morning, or flights via
Moscow involving spending several hours overnight in Sheremetyevo
airport and not reaching Minsk much earlier.  We opt to spend the
night in beds and go via Vienna, mindful also that travel via Moscow
without transit visas could prove difficult.\footnote{Flights from
  Russia to Belarus count as domestic and so need transit visas.
  Another team arrived late at EGMO because they only discovered this
  on arrival at their local airport with bookings for such flights and
  no such visas.}

Lufthansa puts us up in an airport hotel.  UKMT policy, as promulgated
by Geoff Smith, is that all UK adults at international competitions
should have single rooms.  But Geoff is not coming to EGMO this year,
and Jo asserts her independence by saying that she and Jenny can share
a room tonight.

We get a bus to the hotel.  Some people are given rooms that are
already occupied, but eventually this is sorted out and we have dinner
and warn the EGMO organisers of our late arrival.

Arriving late at EGMO means missing the opening ceremony.  It also
means that the English language paper, and most of the translations,
will be done before we arrive.  I send warnings that the Americans
should not try to smuggle American spellings into the English paper,
and instructions on collecting the translations from leaders in my
absence.

\paragraph*{15 April}

We leave the hotel for the airport at 06:15, fly to Vienna and this
time make the connection to Minsk.  Jo's and my bags, however, have
been sent direct to Minsk on a later flight, so we need to wait some
time in baggage reclaim while the rest pass through customs and have
some food.  Eventually our bags arrive and we are met by EGMO helpers
and taken to the Academy of Postdiploma Education, where EGMO is being
held.  En route, we see the
\href{http://www.nlb.by/}{rhombicuboctahedral national library} from
the road.  We have a late lunch, and complete forms listing the food
we propose to eat at each meal for the rest of EGMO (after which we
then ignore those choices and eat what we feel like every time).
Plenty of bottled water is available, including giant six-litre
bottles in our rooms.

Jo and I join the Jury meeting at 5pm.  Contrary to my expectations
from previous years, the English language wording is still being
considered, and the discussion has only reached problem~3.  Despite
this, leaders produce their translations efficiently and all
24~language versions of both days' papers are approved that evening.
As problem captain for problem~5, I also spend some time thinking
about the mark scheme for that problem.

\paragraph*{16 April}

Schoolchildren lead us to the local school where the exams are being
held.  The Jury deals with queries from contestants for the first half
hour of the exam, largely relating to problem~2.  We return to the
Academy for discussion of mark schemes for today's paper.  Day~1
scripts for leaders and coordinators arrive that afternoon.

\paragraph*{17 April}

Again we deal with queries.  I present the mark scheme for problem~5.
Scripts arrive in the afternoon, and I work through those for my table
with my coordination partner.

The UK is on my table, so I ask my coordination partner to look at
those scripts, without telling him my thoughts, to make sure I am not
being overly generous.  The tricky script is Rosie's.  Her script
involves division by~$2$ to an even modulus, carried out incorrectly.
If you correct this division and carry through the correction to the
rest of her script, everything works out the way she did it with no
extra cases required.  Since the mark scheme says that the results of
such divisions (such as $\frac{1}{2}n(n+1)\pmod{n}$) may be stated (as
something depending on the parity of~$n$) without justification, this
seems like a minor mistake justifying a score of~$6$.  My coordination
partner, however, proposes a score of~$7$, and I have to convince him
that there is actually a mistake in the script at all.

\paragraph*{18 April}

UK leaders are hyper-honest in coordination about not asking for more
than a script deserves, and when Jo and Jenny come in to coordinate
problem~5, they request only $3$~marks for Rosie.  We explain the
approach being taken to such mistakes on this problem, where we see
what extra cases are needed if the correction is carried through the
solution.  They go away to verify that no extra cases are needed, and
come back willing to accept~$6$.  The spirit of EGMO is that
coordination is a dialogue between leaders and coordinators to
discover what a script is worth, not an adversarial process where the
leaders are always seeking a higher score than the coordinators, and
Rosie is pleasantly surprised by the increased score.

Most coordinations finish smoothly, but problem~2 has long
combinatorial essays in many languages.  Eventually the Hungarian
coordination on that problem finishes after two and a half hours, and
at 17:38 we have a complete set of scores.

There is a shortage of people interested in EGMO AB membership, so
there are no contested elections.  Medal boundaries are approved.
Romania are announced as hosts of EGMO 2016; Switzerland were
previously agreed as hosts of EGMO 2017, but the announcement delayed
for internal approvals.  The Dutch are always good providers of games
at EGMO, and after dinner I join the UK and Dutch teams playing
Avalon.

\paragraph*{19 April}

We go on an excursion to the town of Mir, seeing the castle, the town
and an exhibition on the Jewish ghetto and having lunch at a
restaurant of traditional Belarusian cuisine.  Most of the UK people
have some form of dietary requirement, and the UK guide Veranika seems
amused at all the questions about what is contained in some dish, or
requests for vegetarian food.

Departure from Mir is somewhat delayed, with long queues for the
single toilet at the restaurant.  It seems we will not reach Minsk
until after the closing ceremony is scheduled to start.  The guides
tell us that it will start at the scheduled time regardless, without
allowing for us to reach Minsk, get dressed up and fetch the flag.

On the bus, I observe that if Geoff were here, he could use his
presence and influence to get the closing ceremony pushed back.  Some
of us wonder if he can work his influence from afar, and Jo Yass texts
him to ask him to do so.  He replies professing inability to get in
touch with the organisers while away from home with no email access,
but nevertheless, on arrival back at the Academy, we are told that the
ceremony has been put back sufficiently for us to get ready for it.

At the ceremony there is a performance by a past Belarusian entrant to
the Eurovision Song Contest.  I present the honourable mentions, and
am presented with my own framed certificate.  The ceremony is followed
by the usual dinner / party with dancing.

\paragraph*{20 April}

In the morning UK people go to a shopping centre.  Jo is unable to
locate her phone when packing and needs Jenny to phone her before it
can be located under her spare bed.

The team have some flowers from the closing ceremony to find a home
for.  They offer them to Veranika, but girls cannot give flowers to
girls in Belarus.  They propose giving them to me for me to give to
Veranika, but girls cannot give flowers to boys in Belarus either.
Apparently girls can leave flowers at memorials, but there aren't any
nearby.

We go to the airport and, despite Jo initially leading us to the wrong
gate, eventually board a flight to Frankfurt along with some other
teams.  Shortly before arrival in Frankfurt, the first landing attempt
is aborted because the departing plane in front had not cleared the
runway in time.\footnote{A parent told us at Heathrow that they'd been
  watching this aborted landing on a flight-tracking website.}
Despite this, we land in time and make our connection, arriving early
at Heathrow, where we go our separate ways.

\section*{Thanks}

EGMO has a very relaxed and friendly atmosphere and thanks are due to
all the participants for maintaining this.  Thanks to the Belarusian
organisers and the EGMO AB for putting on such a well-run event.
Thanks to Jo, Jenny, Olivia, Rosie, Kirsten and Jo for being such nice
travel companions and staying in good humour when the travel was more
eventful than might be hoped.  Thanks to the UK Mathematics Trust for
sponsoring my involvement in EGMO, Bev for arranging travel, Don for
arranging visas, and Man Group for sponsoring the UK EGMO team.

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