Dang seemed to be unlucky when his luggage was lost at the airport; however, he has won the gold medal at the 53rd International Mathematics Olympiad. Minh has been well-known as the student who comes second at all competitions. Lam has always been an excellent student despite his difficult living conditions.

On July 18, the members of the Vietnamese national team attending the 53rd IMO arrived at Noi Bai airport, bringing one gold, three silver and two bronze medals. The medal winners are all very young and clever, but they clearly have different personalities.

The controversial boy

Dau Dang Doanh, the father of Dau Hai Dang, the only gold medal winner, arrived in the Noi Bai airport at 4 am to pick up the son, who returned from the IMO.

When talking about the only son, he said: “Dang always enjoys reading mathematics, science fiction and informatics books. He has a great passion for mathematics.” In minds of the father, Dang is a “controversial boy,” because he always argues with parents to protect his ideas.

Meanwhile, Dang’s mother recalled a special hobby of Dang in the childhood. “He likes studying, researching and discovering. When he was small, he was very mischievous. He made me cry many times because he damaged all the things in the house, from the TV remote control unit to computer,” she said.

After landing in Argentina, the boy from the Hanoi High School for the Gifted under the Hanoi University of Education realized that his luggage was lost on the way and he could not change the clothes, while he could not call the parents because of some technical problems.

However, the unlucky man still excellently solved the mathematics questions to obtain a gold medal for the Vietnamese national team.

When asked about his plan for the future, Dang said: “I will become a mathematician, though I know I will have to go on a thorny and tough road to follow scientific research. Mathematics is my passion.”

The boy who always comes second at competitions

Dong, the father of Nguyen Phuong Minh, who won a silver medal at the 53rd IMO, said that the achievement of the son did not surprise him and his wife.

“Minh attended many competitions for excellent students in the past, and he always came second at the competitions. This has repeated at the 53rd IMO. Minh was just one point far from the gold medal,” the father said.

In the thoughts of his friends, Minh was a diligent student, who spends no less than 10 hours a day to study. On the day when Minh attended the national competition for excellent students in mathematics, Minh had a fever, but he still could fulfill the exercises well.

However, Minh is not a bookworm. He arranges his time in a reasonable way so that he has enough time for studying, working and relaxing.

Son left for attending IMO, mother hospitalized

The day when the youngest son Le Quang Lam left Vietnam for the IMO was also the day Le Thi Thuy, Lam’s mother, was hospitalized to receive treatment for some diseases. However, Lam did not know about that, because his parents did not want to make the son to be heavy hearted.

When Lam returned from the IMO with the silver medal, his mother was still being a patient at the hospital. She was only allowed by the physicians to leave the hospital for the airport for some hours to pick up the son.

However, her health conditions are still less serious than her husband’s, who in 2004 had to undergo a heart operation to have the two artificial cardiac valves replaced.

Source: VNN