The 16th International Geographic Olympiad (IGeo) has opened in Hong Kong on August 31. The Russian national team will have to compete with the strongest young geographers from 43 countries, many of whom have already won medals at the Olympics last year.
The Russian national team includes Lada Antonova, Katarina Mechnikova and Andrei Yakovlev from Moscow and Mikhail Balaban from Saratov. All the guys have showed good results at the All-Russian Olympiad for schoolchildren and the Baltic Olympiad in geography, traditionally supported by the Russian Geographical Society.
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The team was headed by a leading researcher of the Faculty of Geography of Lomonosov Moscow State University Pavel Kirillov and Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Geography of Lomonosov Moscow State University Nikita Mozgunov. Russia is represented in the Executive Committee of the Olympiad by the head of the department of human geography of foreign countries of the Geographical Faculty of Moscow State University Alexei Naumov.
The theoretical round of the Olympiad has already taken place. But the field tour had to be postponed for one day: a typhoon was in Hong Kong, transport did not work, schools were closed.
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The results of the Olympiad will be announced on August 6.
The International Geographical Olympiad (IGeo) is an annual competition during which teams of schoolchildren (winners of national olympiads) from all over the world test their knowledge and skills in the field of geography. The Olympiad has been held since 1996 under the auspices of the International Geographic Union (IGU). The venue of the intellectual competition changes every year. All tasks are presented in English.
For the first time the Russian student Alen Kospanov became the absolute champion at the International Geographic Olympiad in Quebec, Canada, in 2018. He took the first place in the overall ranking by a wide margin from his rivals. Alen was named the best young geographer in the world in 2018.