A Ruse student brought a gold medal to Oxford from the International Programming Olympiad

Viktor Kozhuharov is a graduate of the Ruse MG, and Radostin Chonev is a graduate of the Varna MG

The Bulgarian students in Oxfordthe university Viktor Kozhuharov and Radostin Chonev, together with his teammate Harris Lung from Hong Kong, won historically gold medal at the prestigious International Olympics by programming for College Students (ICPC), whose 46th edition was held from April 14 to 19 in Luxor, Egypt.

These are the first gold medals ever won by Bulgarians in the annual competition for students, also known as the “Olympic Games” in the field of programmingit.

For Oxford the achievement is the highest of all time since the beginning of Olympicsso in 1970. This is also a historic first gold medal of an English university in a competition on programming for students.

International Olympics in Computer Science (ICPC) is the oldest, largest and most prestigious competition in the world that attracts the best students studying computer science. They go through competitive regional qualifiers to reach the global final, where teams of three students compete to solve 11 complex algorithmic problems within 5 hours. Competitors work together on one computer. The teams that solve the most tasks with the fewest attempts and in the shortest time are declared the winners. Only the first 12 teams get medals, 4 of them are gold, 4 silver and 4 bronze.

Last year, more than 40,000 college students from 111 countries and 3,450 universities from around the world participated in the regional competitions. 124 teams from six continents qualified for the final in Egypt.

The gold medal won by Victor, Radostin and Harris from Oxforduniversity, ranked the team the outstanding first place in Europe for 2023. The success proved once again the leading position of the educational institution among European universities in the field of computer science, as well as the good foundation of training in competitive programming in our country.