Attendance sags at International Physics Olympiad in Iran

Contestants from China, Russia, South Korea, and other perennially high-scoring teams competed at this year’s International Physics Olympiad (IPhO), which was held 21–29 July in Isfahan, Iran. But many of their usual peers in the high school physics competition were not in attendance.

The US physics team withdrew from IPhO because of the US Department of State’s advisory discouraging travel to Iran. The team instead competed at an event they had not attended in previous years: the European Physics Olympiad (EuPhO), which was held 15–19 July in Kutaisi, Georgia. Many teams from Europe also attended only EuPhO. At both competitions, students tackle theoretical and experimental physics problems.

Contestants from 84 countries attended IPhO last year in Japan; the number dropped to 46 this year. Attendance at EuPhO jumped from 37 teams in 2023 to 55 this year. China, Russia, and South Korea were among the countries that attended only IPhO. Iran’s team also did not go to Georgia. Teams from more than a dozen countries, including Romania, Georgia, and Saudi Arabia, competed in both events.

At the IPhO opening ceremony, Mahmud Bahmanabadi, the head of the competition’s organizing committee and a professor at Sharif University of Technology in Iran, expressed the committee’s regret for “the absence of young women and men” from some countries.

At EuPhO, the top scorer in experiment and overall was Rares-Felix Tudose, and he and Alexandru Momoiu, both from Romania, were the top scorers in theory. With four gold medals and one bronze at EuPhO and three gold medals and two silvers at IPhO, the Romanian team was the only one to win gold medals at both competitions.

All five US team members earned EuPhO gold medals, with Allen Li (Cupertino, California) and Luke Huang (New Canaan, Connecticut) placing second and third overall, respectively. The other three members of the team were Richard Yang (Iowa City, Iowa), Shuoyan Chen (Fullerton, California), and Zian Shi (Fresno, California). The team is sponsored by the American Association of Physics Teachers, the American Institute of Physics (the publisher of Physics Today), the other AIP member societies, and more.

The experimental questions at EuPhO involved piezoelectricity, and the theoretical questions covered friction coefficients, relativistic reference frames, and the Fabry–Perot interferometer.

China was the only team at IPhO to win five gold medals, with Zhang Xinrui scoring best overall and Jin Shuyu and Wang Zehua tying for best in theory. The topics encompassed global warming, laser cooling, and evolution of a binary star system. Outside the competition, students toured the Isfahan Science and Technology Town and visited historic sites, such as Naqsh-e Jahan Square.

The 2025 International Physics Olympiad will be held in France.