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\title{Observations on EGMO 2018}
\author{Joseph Myers}
\date{April 2018}
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\section*{Introduction}

The \href{https://www.egmo.org/egmos/egmo7/}{seventh} European Girls'
Mathematical Olympiad (\href{https://www.egmo.org/}{EGMO}) was held in
Florence, Italy, between 9 and 15~April 2018.

I participated in this event in my usual role of IT, travelling with
the UK team but not as part of the UK delegation.  The UK team
consisted of Emily Beatty, Melissa Quail, Alevtina Studenikina and
Naomi Wei, with the leader being Jo Caisov\'a and the deputy leader
being Jenny Owladi.  More about the EGMO~2018 experience from the
perspectives of participating teams and leaders may be found in other
reports, when available.  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}.

\section*{Diary}

\paragraph*{6 April}

The EGMO team and reserve are in Cambridge at the annual UK training
and IMO selection camp.  The team fleeces are distributed, in time for
photos to be taken for an
\href{https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-news/how-inspire-girls-do-well-maths}{article}
to appear in \textit{\href{https://www.tes.com/}{TES}}.  The fleeces
have the correct logo, the correct sizes, and good contrast between
the white text and the blue fleece.

\paragraph*{9 April}

While most of the students at the Cambridge camp are sitting the
second Team Selection Test this morning, the EGMO team sat it
yesterday.
\href{https://www.imo-register.org.uk/2013-egmo-report.pdf}{As in
  2013}, most of the UK EGMO delegation, including Geoff Smith (EGMO
Advisory Board and Coordinator), is travelling direct from Cambridge
to EGMO, and we leave on a minibus to Stansted while the other
students are still in their exam.  Unlike in 2013, Geoff does not have
news of any olympiad-related romantic comedies being made.  Jenny
meets the rest of us at Stansted.

We fly to Pisa, to catch a train to Florence.  First we need to get
from the airport to the city centre.  Just as we are boarding the
PisaMover to get there, Geoff finds he has left his suitcase behind
and needs to go back to locate it before it is disposed of as
unattended luggage.

Our train to Florence is not for some time, so we go to have dinner at
a pizza restaurant.  While there, Geoff and I confirm the IMO squad
selection for Tonbridge camp with Dominic back in Cambridge, and duly
congratulate Emily on being chosen.

Arriving in Florence, we are met by EGMO guides, led to our bus and
taken to the Grand Hotel Mediterraneo, where we check in and receive
EGMO bags and name badges.  Tasty biscotti in the bags are a nice
touch.  The Jury meeting is at 8:30 the next morning and some people
are keen to sleep.

\paragraph*{10 April}

The day starts with a Jury meeting to approve the problems, followed
by work on the English versions.  The US leader says her students can
handle a paper referring to a queue, so no separate ``English (US)''
version will be needed where contestants form a line instead.

We go to an entertaining opening ceremony at the Teatro Verdi.  The
teams come on stage in a mysterious order.  The organisers reveal that
this is not the order of how late travel details were registered, or
that of how many emails each country sent them, but that of the
average age of team members.  The leaders and those accompanying them
get a parade on stage as well.

EGMO is now a huge event and a few administrative oddities are
inevitable.  Certain flags on name badges have colours in shades that
make them look like the flags of other countries, while the assignment
of flags to the badges of international EGMO staff is not entirely
consistent.  One female leader was surprised to find her room
originally assigned to be shared with a male leader, and corrections
needed to be made.

After lunch, work on the English papers continues.  Some leaders are
concerned about the humour in problem~3, and whether future readers
will understand that there is not actually a corrupt Jury extracting
money from contestants, but it makes the problem much more memorable
than a suggested alternative of rearranging numbers on a blackboard,
and so that version of the problem is approved with only minor
changes.  Work on translations continues late into the evening, with
an interlude for candidates for election to the EGMO Advisory Board to
introduce themselves.  The papers are printed and the Jury room turned
into an exam room.

\paragraph*{11 April}

The restaurant used by leaders for breakfast turns into the Jury room
to handle queries from students about the meanings of the problems.
53~queries are processed in an hour and a half.  There is confusion
about the use of ``unique'' in problem~1 (meaning that only cases
where two lines are not the same or parallel are to be considered),
and about the overall nature of that problem, which is about a locus.
The set notation in problem~2 confuses some people, as does counting
the factors in a product whose factors may not all be different, and
the quite complicated formulation of problem~3.  Standard answers are
agreed to some common queries.  The first day's mark schemes are
discussed and approved.

At this point, there are no official excursions listed on the timetable
for non-contestants,
but EGMO guides are taking teams round Florence, and some other people
are going out on their own or with teams.  I join Jo, Jenny and the UK
team on a walk.  Jo's guidebook has had an accident with a water
bottle and only opens at certain pages.  We go up the hill to the
Piazzale Michelangelo, then visit some churches and a cemetery.  Then
we come to a gold- and silver-smith's with an alchemical bent.  The
guidebook explains that this is a good place to buy rings of
invisibility, and we realise that the UKMT risk assessment for EGMO
failed to consider risks of contestants becoming invisible.  After
visiting a gelateria we return to the hotel in increasingly heavy
rain.  Jo and Jenny will start work on the day's UK scripts, while I
print the papers for the next day.

\paragraph*{12 April}

Many questions about problem~4 ask whether the dominoes are required
to cover the whole board.  There is also confusion about what a
``configuration'' is in that problem, and some questions seek
confirmation that a domino entirely in a row or column contributes~$1$
to that row or column's value rather than~$2$.  For problem~5, many
queries ask whether the order of $P$~and~$Q$ is significant.

During the mark scheme discussion, the French-speaking leaders
discover that problem~6 in French was asking about
\textit{integers}~$t$ with $0<t<\frac{1}{2}$, requiring a correction
to refer to real numbers to be sent to affected contestants, none of
whom had raised a query about this issue.

Emily comes out of the exam reporting having solved all three
problems.  As she solved all three problems on the first day as well,
things are looking very good for her.

In the afternoon, I join Jo, Jenny and the UK team again, this time
for a visit to the Uffizi.  Some of the tickets purchased are
discounted or free, requiring proof of age and nationality.  On the
way to the gallery, we find that Alevtina does not have her passport
with her, so Jo and Alevtina run back to the hotel to fetch it.  At
the gallery, no-one makes any identity checks after all.

\paragraph*{13 April}

Today coordination takes place, and I am doing data entry for the
scores, while the online scoreboard sustains around a hundred hits a
minute.

Coordination of problems 5 and~6 progresses rapidly, while problems 1
and~4, and especially problem~3, become bogged down.  The UK completes
coordination, with spectacularly good results: third in the world as a
team, and with Emily having the first perfect score of a UK contestant
in an international maths competition since Katy Maclean at IMO~1994.
The team is duly congratulated at dinner.

The final Jury meeting is announced as happening at 21:00, then pushed
back to 22:15.  Eventually a postponement to the next morning is
announced, but a majority of leaders wish to do as much as possible
this evening.  Business not depending on scores takes place first,
including elections to the EGMO Advisory Board.

Seven coordinations are disputed and taken to the Jury, which goes
through them one by one.  Past 02:00, they are all resolved, but
changes voted for by the Jury now require the coordinators to go
through scripts on problem~4 to identify other scripts whose marks
should be changed for consistency; this process continues past 05:00.

The Jury will meet again at 08:30 to approve the final scores and
decide medal cut-offs.  This disappoints people who had hoped to take
part in the planned morning activities (including the opportunity to
make a trip to Pisa, leaving before 08:30), but is unavoidable given
the importance of consistency in scoring.

\paragraph*{14 April}

The Jury meets and approves the final scores and medal cut-offs.
People wanting the trip to Pisa catch a later train, while the Jury
meeting finishes before the team competition starts, but the
Anglo-Dutch team drops out of the team competition anyway as everyone
is too tired.

In the afternoon we head to the closing ceremony at the Teatro Verdi.
As well as the usual prizes, there are awards for the most paper used
by a contestant, the most water drunk and the most toilet breaks
taken.  From there we head to the closing dinner at the Palazzo
Borghese.  We are all tired, and Geoff and I head back to the hotel
early from there with the team (disappointing people who later seek
selfies with Geoff at the dinner), leaving Jo and Jenny there for a
while longer.

\paragraph*{15 April}

After some confusion about which minibus outside the hotel is for us,
we get a minibus to the station, a train to Pisa, and a flight to
Stansted, which lands half an hour early.  There are then long delays
in immigration for non-EU citizens, and some people are being met by
parents using short-stay parking, so people start to go their separate
ways.  I meet Jo again on the platform for the Cambridge train once
she gets the affected team members safely into the country.

\section*{Thanks}

The Italian organisers did a splendid job.  Thanks to them and the
EGMO AB for putting on such a friendly event in the beautiful city of
Florence.  Thanks to Jo, Jenny, Emily, Melissa, Alevtina and Naomi for
being great representatives of the UK and travel companions as we came
to and explored Florence.  Thanks to the EGMO~2018 organisers and the
UK Mathematics Trust for sponsoring my involvement in EGMO and
arranging travel and Man Group for sponsoring the UK EGMO team.
Thanks to Geoff for his enormous ongoing contributions to EGMO; his
term on the EGMO Advisory Board has now ended, but he remains heavily
involved.

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