The ACM ICPC World Programming Finals took place a few days ago on April 21st. St. Petersburg State University of IT, Mechanics and Optics was first, Tsinghua University second, and St. Petersburg State University was third. You can check out the full standings here.
As usual, Waterloo was Canada’s top competitor, finishing in the medals for the 6th year in a row with six problems solved. I am always amazed at how well Waterloo does. They are consistently in the medals regardless of their regional performance. At their regional this year, they finished 3rd behind two teams from Carnegie Mellon University, yet at the finals, they beat Carnegie Mellon. Of course, it’s easy to have a bad competition or get stuck on a problem, but they always seem to bring their A-game at the finals.
UBC was the second highest Canadian team, finishing tied for 34th with four problems solved. The other Canadian teams (Alberta and McGill) both received honourable mention. This is not the strongest showing for Canada, but a number of typically good teams did not place (e.g. CalTech).
Russia and China dominated the medal positions. North America only claimed three spots out of 13, with MIT being the top North American team finishing 7th with seven problems solved. One surprising medal winner was Tbilisi State University from Georgia. At least, I cannot recall them ever being at the finals let alone in the medals. Of course, I could be wrong.
Stanford University was the top placing team from UVic’s region, finishing 20th. UBC was next and then Berkeley. UBC was actually beat by Berkeley in the regional competition, so it’s nice to see them get some kind of revenge.
I haven’t read the problems yet, but I’ll probably check them out soon.
