Chemistry Olympiad 2009

2009 marks the 41st anniversary of the International Chemistry Olympiad.  21 U8 and 25 L8 sat the first round paper in February, contested by 2,165 boys from 273 UK schools and colleges.  7 gold medals went to St Paul's (Beardmore, Bennett, Dobson, Emerson, Fegelman, Gilbert, Tan), 14 silver (Ahuja, Carr, Carter, Dannenberg, Duckworth, Estrin-Serlui, Farrell, Khan, Ko, Menasche, Ramasamy, Shah, Simmons, Wong) and 18 bronze (Alloway, Boulton, Chase, Cowan, Cummings, De Mucha, Deneham, Gill, Glynne-Jones, Hansra, Harvey, Hay, Kamdar, Matson, Morland, Patel, Snowball, Waltz).  These results are our best to date: joint highest tally for gold, but our best overall total of gold, silver and bronze.

Emerson and Tan, whose scores put them amongst the top AS pupils in the country, have been invited to attend an intensive training weekend in Cambridge this summer, covering more demanding topics based around previous Olympiad questions.  It should be excellent preparation for students intending to continue their study of Chemistry at university, and it will also stand them in good stead for next year's Round 1 Olympiad competition.  The latter will help select the UK team for the 2010 international competition in Japan.