The first official season of the Olympia competition was held with various missions in mind. It promotes the spirit of learning and Amsers’ tenacity to conquer the summit of knowledge. The contest also laid a foundation for the school’s  Olympia movement in subsequent years. Notably, it selected the best candidate to represent Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted and participate in the 23rd year of Road to Olympia, organized by Vietnam Television Station. After a long journey of talent-scouting at Hanoi - Amsterdam High School for the Gifted, OlympiAms has found the perfect recipe for the finals, which consists of Nguyen Quang Anh (11 Maths), Nguyen Duy Vinh (11 History), Le Nguyen Vu (11 Physics) and Le Thai An (11 English). Before the round commenced, hundreds of spectators were present and awaited the contestants. 

Professional advisors with radiant smiles

After the opening performance of the exquisite and heartening song “Tu nguyen” (Willing), the MC officially announced the start of the OlympiAms 2023 Finals. Moreover, OA23 was honored to welcome the delegates, teachers, professional advisors, and sponsors who participated in the program.

Our two enthusiastic MCs

Immediately after, the contestants of the OlympiAms 2023 Finals appeared with applause from the audience. Before entering this intense battle, the contestants introduced themselves through videos to share what they had prepared and how they evaluated their opponents.

All contestants presented interesting insights

In the Warm-Up, the contestants went through 3 rounds of increasing difficulty. After the first 8 questions in the first round, Thai An temporarily took the lead in the first 2 rounds with a 10-point difference from the runner-up, but at the end of the 3rd round, which was also the end of the Warm-up, Nguyen Vu won the top spot in the leaderboard.

The contestants’ scores after the Warm-Up

The mystery word of the Obstacle Race consists of 12 letters. The contestants have to defeat tough questions to unveil the puzzle. Notably, when the third suggestion was revealed, only Thai An’s answer differed from the rest, and surprisingly, Thai An was the only one correct. When most of the image had been revealed, the contestants gradually suspected the answer to the mystery word. Nguyen Vu was the one to quickly win the chance to answer and his choice was flawless: “Undersea fiber-optic cable”, thus widening the gap from the others with 125 leading points.

The total score after the Obstacle Race

In Speed-Up, the questions only got harder. In the first 3 sentences, no one got any points. It was not until the end did the contestants gradually accumulate their scores. Once again, Nguyen Vu showed his sublime prowess when he won all 40 points, and Thai An closely followed with 30 points. With this result, Nguyen Vu continued to lead with 165 points, 50 points more than Thai An — which was quite a big gap. Quang Anh had 25 points and Duy Vinh had 35 points.

The ultimate climax was Race to the Finish line. The battle now seemed to be just a two-horse race of Thai An and Nguyen Vu. Their score difference was not distinct, so in this contest, it was still anyone’s game.

The scores before the start of the final round

The first person to step up was Nguyen Vu. Vu chose 3 20-point questions — a safe choice to remain in the lead and win. However, in the first 2 questions, Nguyen Vu could not give the right answer and lost points to Thai An and Duy Vinh. Now that the gap between the winner and the runner-up shrunk considerably, the race was more intense than ever. In the last question, Nguyen Vu was very quick to answer and won his test’s only score of 20 points.

Nguyen Vu in the final round

Even though Nguyen Vu failed to keep his composure from the previous rounds, Thai An still could not take advantage of the opportunity. He similarly chose 3 20-point questions and only got one right answer, but Nguyen Vu could not reclaim the points in this round, so Thai An temporarily regained the top position after 2 rounds.

Thai An engrossed in the contest

Duy Vinh was the next to reach the finish line, and he chose the question pack of 20-30-20. In the first question about chemistry, no one could give a correct answer. Suddenly, in the second question, Nguyen Vu answered, albeit incorrectly, and lost 15 points. Now, Thai An was distancing himself from Nguyen Vu. In the last question, in the hope of increasing the total score, Duy Vinh used the “star of hope” and flawlessly won a full of 40 points.

Duy Vinh was answering a question

The last contestant was Quang Anh. However, he was down on his luck, as he could only answer the first question correctly and lose points on the “star of hope”. It was also the last chance for Nguyen Vu to catch up with Thai An, but the psychological pressure was strenuous and Vu did not succeed.

Quang Anh in an easy-going mood in the final round

With that turn of events, Thai An took the lead with 155 points after the Race to the Finishing line, followed by Nguyen Vu, Duy Vinh, and Quang Anh with 115, 70, and 15 points respectively.

Congratulations to Thai An on winning the laurels!

After the nerve-racking competition, Thai An won an emotional and unexpected victory, bringing endless joy to him and moments of suspense to the audience. Once again, best of congratulations to Thai An — Champion of OlympiAms 2023!

Translator: Trần Linh Ngân - English 2 2124