LONDON: Indian-Origin Schoolgirl Youngest On UK Team For Europe Math Olympiad

LONDON: A 13-year-old Indian-origin
schoolgirl has become the youngest to be selected for the UK team which will
compete at the prestigious European Girls’ Mathematical Olympiad to be hosted
by the eastern European country of Georgia next month.

Aanya
Goyal, a student of Alleyn’s School in Dulwich, south London, used the extended
period of lockdown last year to throw herself further into her passion for
mathematical problem-solving.

With the
help of her maths coach and former Math Olympian father, Amit Goyal, she
focussed on a series of exams organised by the UK Mathematics Trust (UKMT) to
select the British team for the EGMO.

“The
Olympiad problems are all about being creative and digging deep. Sometimes a problem
can take many days to solve but it is all about not giving up easily and to
keep coming up with new ideas,” said Aanya.

Over
600,000 secondary school students across the UK appear for the UKMT challenges
every year and only the top 1,000 are invited to the British Mathematical
Olympiad in November each year.

Of these,
the top 100 are invited to Round 2 of the British Mathematical Olympiad in
January – a three-and-a-half-hour competition comprising four challenging
problems.

Aanya
went on to achieve a Distinction and was ranked among the top four girls to be
selected for the UK team for the EGMO, also becoming the youngest – a record held
by a 15-year-old until now.

“Maths
means problem-solving. Before I started school and in primary, I did a lot of
puzzles, crosswords, sudoku variants and kakuro etc. In secondary, I did
codebreaking, cypher challenges, chess, and linguistics,” said the schoolgirl,
who is excited about not only making the cut for the team but also being
selected alongside one of her role models, Yuhka Machino, recognised as the
world’s best female mathematician.

As
someone exempt from normal maths lessons at school, Aanya’s entire focus is on
specialised math problem-solving and she hopes to inspire others to overcome
the view that maths is a tough subject.

“Many
students do not give maths a real chance. The adults keep repeating that maths
is tough and that is what people of my age have heard all their life, so a few
of them adopt it as a reality,” the teenager said.

“In
England, adults constantly joke about being bad at maths, creating low
expectations so many students think it is ok to be bad at maths. The more you
practise, not only does maths become easier, but it also becomes more exciting
and rewarding. But if you approach maths without confidence and a real heart
then it can become pointless and cold,” she says.

As
someone who has had regular success at Maths Olympiads, including winning a
gold medal at the UKMT Junior Maths Olympiad three years ago when she was still
at primary school, her entire focus now is on winning a medal for the UK at the
EGMO.

“I
do maths for the joy I get out of it and not for any career goals. I will study
maths at university, but my career choices include law and politics,” adds
Aanya, who also happens to be on a shortlist of 50 from which the UK team for
the International Linguistics Olympiad, to be held in Latvia in July, will be
selected next month.

Meanwhile,
the Londoner is preparing for the EGMO in Georgia, which has been transformed
into a hybrid event due to the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions with individual
countries deciding whether to travel or to participate remotely. The UK has chosen
the remote option, with the British team likely to gather in one location for
the competition.