Russian Student Wins Gold at the iGeo in Taiwan
The long-awaited results of the International Geography Olympiad in Taiwan were finally announced on August 4. Students from 27 countries contended to win the competition. Ksenia Sokolova, the only girl in the Russian team, came fourth in individual ranking and won a gold medal.
The Russian team was made up of four high school students who showed the best results at the All-Russian Geography Olympiad. They are Ksenia Sokolova from Moscow, Vladislav Sosnin from Dmitrov, Razil Sungattulin from Chistopol, and Andrey Tyukavin from Syktyvkar.
For 2 weeks, the young geographers had intensive training in a special camp to prepare for the Olympiad. This year, thanks to the grant allocated by the Russian Geographical Society, the range of activities in the training camp was extended: more attention was given to field work, English and psychology. The team’s preparations were supervised by Aleksei S. Naumov, Ph.D., Associate Professor at Moscow State University, full member of the Russian Geographical Society. Designers created special Russian style outfits for the students, with the T-shirts carrying decorative patterns, corresponding to each participant’s home region.
The Olympiad’s opening ceremony was on July 29. The following days were dedicated to four challenges: a written response test, a two-part field work test and a multimedia test. The final scores were obtained by adding the scores in these four tests.
Unlike the Olympic Games, when the gold medal goes to the absolute winner, the silver goes to the second best, and so on, the medals at the Geography Olympiad were distributed among many students, based on their rating. Thus, the highest award was given to several strongest students.
Ksenia Sokolova from Russia, who came 4th out of 106 contenders, is one of the youngest students to get gold in this competition. She is also one of the winners, who don’t speak English as their native language, which makes her medal even more valuable.
The event organizers have repeatedly noted that teams coming from the English-speaking countries have a certain advantage over other competitors. By the way, a member of the Romanian team is studying at Oxford.
Ksenia confessed that generally she had no problem with English, though she had some difficulties in the second part of the field work test. The students had to write extensive answers after making observation in an unknown area, where they stayed only for 2 hours. To make it more challenging, the questions were not exact – the contestants had to write a lengthy essay on a global geographical issue.
Right after the awarding ceremony, the winner from Russia shared her impressions with Ksenia Ivanenko, head of the International Relations and Protocol Department of the Russian Geographical Society, who accompanied the Russian team at the Olympiad in Taipei.
“When they announced the names of those who didn’t get any medals, my name was not on the list,” says Ksenia. “So I thought that I was going to win a bronze medal. But there wasn’t my name on that list either. The pressure was mounting…When I heard I had won a gold medal, I was so excited that I could barely walk to the stage. It was so unexpected! Most of the winners had taken part in the Olympiad before, but I was a novice.”
Winning a gold medal was Ksenia’s long-cherished dream – she had been trying to achieve this goal since she was in the 7th grade. Ksenia happily disclosed her winning formula. “To have deep knowledge in the subject you like, you have to work hard and do it systematically,” she thinks. “I’d like to thank the Russian Geographical Society for their support!” said Ksenia at the end of the interview. Not surprisingly, the girl has already chosen her future profession – this year she’s finished school and has already entered the Department of Geography of the Moscow State University.
As for the teams’ rating, Singapore came first, followed by Australia and Poland. The Russian team, according to preliminary scores, finished the competition in the middle.
