Great placing for New Zealand Olympians

11 August 2005

Great placing for New Zealand Olympians

A team of young Olympians have followed on from New Zealand's Olympic triumph in Athens, bringing home a bronze medal and an impressive world ranking.

Competing in the 2005 International Chemistry Olympiad in Taiwan Devarshi Bhattacharyya, a student at Auckland Grammar School, won a bronze medal while the team finished 37 overall.

The four Year 13 secondary school students, Lewis Winn from St Paul's Collegiate, Daniel Chan from Mt Roskill grammar, Wei Li Jiang from Burnside High school and Devarshi, competed against 260 students from more than 60 other countries.

"The students performed really well against stiff competition. Each year you can see the standard of the competition going higher and we are delighted with the students' performance especially considering we were up against all of the major countries who have a greater pool of resources," says Dr Sheila Woodgate of the Faculty of Science at the University.

The Department of Chemistry, at The University of Auckland, host the camps and offers coaching and support leading up to the event while the Faculty of Science provides the team with financial support.

Theoretical and practical questions were posed from almost all sectors of chemistry, which the students had to solve individually. The students also had an opportunity to get to know Taiwan in its scenic and cultural diversity and as a location for chemistry in research, teaching, industry and technology.

ENDS

© Scoop Media