For most students, falling ill just days before an important examination would mean staying home, resting and putting the competition aside.For sixth-grader Mai Ngoc Duy of Tran My Ninh Secondary School in Thanh Hoa, the situation was very different.Just three days before the final of the 2026 AIMO International Mathematical Olympiad, Duy suddenly developed health problems and was admitted to hospital.After months of preparation, the timing could hardly have been worse.Yet Duy did not want to give up his chance to compete.With doctors assessing that he was well enough to travel, his family made a difficult decision. They took him by private car to Hanoi so he could sit for the examination.He returned to hospital after the test.Then came the news that made the entire family emotional.Duy had won a silver medal.
A hospital bed could not stop his biggest challenge
Duy was participating in the AIMO international final for the first time.He had spent much of his summer and school holidays preparing for the competition, working through difficult mathematics problems and revising different types of questions.For a student who had only recently discovered a deeper interest in mathematics, the competition represented an opportunity to test himself against students from other countries.Then, just days before the final, illness threatened to end that journey before it had even begun.His mother, Nguyen Thi Ngoc Hoa, recalled how worried the family became when Duy had to be hospitalised.The family had watched him prepare seriously for the competition for months. They did not want his health to be compromised, but they also knew how much the opportunity meant to him.They spoke with the doctors.Once Duy was considered fit enough to travel, the family decided to take him to Hanoi in a private car, prioritising his safety while allowing him to participate.It was a journey that began from a hospital bed and ended in an examination hall.
The questions were harder than expected
Duy later described the international final as challenging.Some of the 30 questions were difficult enough that he could not solve them within the available time.There was one problem in particular that stayed on his mind after he left the examination hall—a mathematics question involving circumference. He had worked out the approach, but time ran out before he could complete it.For a young student competing internationally for the first time, the experience was as much about learning as it was about winning.Duy said the official examination contained new types of questions and more unpredictable elements than some of the tests he had previously taken.That made the experience challenging, but also exciting.And somewhere between the difficult questions, the pressure of the competition and the ticking clock, Duy managed to produce a performance good enough to earn an international silver medal.
His love for difficult problems began in sixth grade
Duy’s interest in mathematics developed relatively recently.It was in sixth grade that he began participating in international mathematics competitions and discovered that difficult problems could be enjoyable rather than intimidating.He particularly likes challenges.For Duy, solving a difficult mathematical problem brings a sense of excitement. Instead of walking away when a question appears too complicated, he prefers to investigate it more deeply and look for a way through.His approach to preparation is methodical.He studies different types of questions, learns the methods used to solve them, works through examples and then returns to questions he answered incorrectly.The mistakes, in particular, become part of the lesson.That habit of looking back at what went wrong may be one of the reasons he has continued to improve.
The medal became even more special from a hospital bed
Duy’s family had not gone into the competition expecting a medal.For his mother, the preparation itself was already valuable.She believed the experience could help her son develop his mathematical and English abilities while allowing him to meet students from Vietnam and other countries and exchange ideas about mathematics.The family’s priority was always his health.But then came the phone call they had been waiting for.Duy had won silver.The news was especially emotional because he was still receiving treatment in hospital.The family once again approached the doctors, this time seeking permission for Duy to travel to Hanoi so he could attend the medal ceremony with his teammates.The image is difficult to forget: a young student who had been lying in a hospital bed just days earlier now travelling to receive an international mathematics medal.
A medal, but also a lesson in perseverance
Duy’s silver medal is certainly a recognition of his mathematical ability.But the story behind it is perhaps even more meaningful.The medal represents months of preparation, hours spent wrestling with difficult problems and the courage to compete despite an unexpected health setback.It also reflects the support of a family that tried to protect his health while respecting how important the opportunity was to him.They did not push him towards a medal.They supported him because they knew he wanted to test himself.And when the result finally arrived, they celebrated together.
More than 1,300 students took part
The 2026 AIMO international final was held in Hanoi, bringing together around 1,300 participants from 22 countries and regions.The Vietnamese contingent performed strongly, with participants receiving championship, runner-up, gold, silver, bronze and special awards.Among them was Duy, a sixth-grader whose journey to the examination hall had been anything but ordinary.He had entered his first international final carrying more than the pressure of mathematics.He was carrying the uncertainty of illness, the hopes of his family and the desire to find out how far his abilities could take him.
Sometimes the biggest victory happens before the results arrive
When Duy first entered the competition, nobody knew what the final result would be.His family certainly could not have predicted that he would eventually return with a silver medal.What they did know was that he had worked hard and wanted the opportunity to compete.That is why they helped him make it to the examination hall.The medal is now a wonderful reminder of what happened.But perhaps the more important achievement came earlier—when a young student, faced with an unexpected obstacle just days before an important competition, chose not to give up.He left the hospital, sat down with hundreds of other young mathematicians and faced the problems in front of him.Then he returned to hospital to continue his treatment.And when the result came, the silver medal waiting for him was proof that sometimes determination has its own way of writing a story.For Duy, the journey to the medal did not begin with a question on an examination paper.It began in a hospital bed, with a difficult choice and a simple desire: He still wanted to try.
