20100502 Taiwanese students clean up at Physics Olympiad in Taipei

Taiwanese students clean up at Physics Olympiad in Taipei

Staff Writer, with CNA
Sunday, May 02, 2010, Page 2

Taiwanese students amassed five gold, one silver, four bronze and six honor medals at the 11th Asia Physics Olympiad, which concluded in Taipei on Friday.

Wang Si-po (王思博), from Taipei Municipal Jianguo High School, emerged as the competition’s big winner with the highest total score and a gold in physics theory.

The competition brought together 130 students from 16 countries or regions.

As the host, Taiwan entered two teams, a total of 16 students, in the competition. One of the teams took gold in a group event.

Wang, a gold medal winner at the International Mathematical Olympiad and at the International Olympiad in Informatics, has been granted automatic admission to National Taiwan University’s (NTU) Department of Electrical Engineering.

To win an award, contestants had to read extensively and familiarize themselves with past test questions, Wang said.

“There is no shortcut to success,” he added.

Silver medalist Hsu Nai-lun (徐乃倫), who has been offered a place at NTU’s Department of Physics, said mathematics and physics were his favorite subjects and that he is very interested in physics because it is closely related to situations in everyday life.

Lin Min-juey (林明瑞), a physics professor at National Taiwan Normal University, the university responsible for training Taiwan’s entrants, said they would have performed well even if their Chinese counterparts had participated.

At last year’s Olympiad in Bangkok, China took home eight gold medals to Taiwan’s seven.

Chinese students were absent from this year’s competition because of “political considerations,” said Lin, who is also chairman of the Olympiad’s organizing committee.