# Asian Physics Olympiad

The Asian Physics Olympiad (APhO) is an annual physics competition for high school students from Asia and Oceania regions. It is one of the International Science Olympiads. It was initiated in the year 2000 by Indonesia. The first APhO was hosted by Indonesia in 2000.
APhO has its origins in the International Physics Olympiad and is conducted according to similar statutes (One five-hour theoretical examination and one or two laboratory examinations). It is usually held about two months before the IPhO and can also be seen as additional training for the teams.
Each national delegation is made up of eight competitors (unlike five in the IPhO) plus two leaders. Observers may also accompany a national team. The leaders are involved in the selection, preparation and translation of the exam tasks, and the translation and marking of exam papers. The students compete as individuals, and must sit through intensive theoretical and laboratory examinations. For their efforts the students can be awarded a medal (gold, silver or bronze) or an honorable mention.

## History

In 1999, the team leader of Indonesia, Prof. Yohanes Surya, Ph.D., together with the president of IPhO, Prof.Waldemar Gorzkowski, undertook to create and organize the first APhO, which was held in Indonesia, between April 24 and May 2, 2000. At this time, prof. Gorzkowski was also working in Indonesia to help with the IPhO team. The event attracted participants from 12 Asian countries. It now is attended by up to 27 countries.
Actively participating countries include Australia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macau, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Tajikistan, Thailand, and Vietnam. Romania has participated in guest teams in the past years.

## Differences between APhO and IPhO

APhO has 8 students in each delegation, while IPhO has 5.

### The award system

In 2001, the IPhO International Board accepted a new system of awarding the prizes. The new system, designed by Cyril Isenberg and Dr. Gunter Lind was based on a relative number of contestants for each type of award, instead of the score boundaries defined by percentage of the best contestant's score.
This was not acceptable for APhO, because the average level of contestants is different. The old system remained in power for APhO since the beginning up to 9th APhO in Mongolia, where the leaders voted for replacing it by a new award system suggested by Dr. Eli Raz from the Israeli delegation. The new system, sometimes unofficially referred to as the Israeli Award System, is based on a reference score that is the lowest between twice the median score and the mean score of the top 3 participants. It was first used on 10th APhO in Thailand Archived 2009-09-03 at the Wayback Machine.

## Summary

Information on previous years of the APhO:
| Number | Year | City | Country | Date | Teams | Absolute Winner | Score | Cutoffs (G/S/B/HM) |
| 1 | 2000 | Tangerang | Indonesia | April 23 - May 2, 2000 | 10 | Song Junliang (China) | 44.75/50 | 38/33/27/21 |
| 2 | 2001 | Taipei | Chinese Taipei | April 22 - May 1, 2001 | 12 | Tsai Hsin-Yu (Chinese Taipei) | 34.50/50 | 28/25/20/16 |
| 3 | 2002 | Singapore | Singapore | May 6–14, 2002 | 15 | Gu Chun Hui (China) | | 35/?/25/? |
| 4 | 2003 | Bangkok | Thailand | April 20–29, 2003 | 10 | Pawit Sangchant (Thailand) | 45.90/50 | 40/34/29/22 |
| 5 | 2004 | Hanoi | Vietnam | April 26 - May 4, 2004 | 13 | Lang Ruitian (China) | 45.10/50 | 39/34/28/22 |
| 6 | 2005 | Pekanbaru | Indonesia | April 24 - May 2, 2005 | 17 | Li Fang (China) | 45.60/50 | 40/35/29/22 |
| 7 | 2006 | Almaty | Kazakhstan | April 22–30, 2006 | 18 | Zhu Li (China) | 44.30/50 | 39/34/28/21 |
| 8 | 2007 | Shanghai | China | April 21–29, 2007 | 22 | Yun Yang (China) | 43.30/50 | 38/33/28/21 |
| 9 | 2008 | Ulaanbaatar | Mongolia | April 20–28, 2008 | 18 | Ji He (China) | 42.70/50 | 37/32/27/20 |
| 10 | 2009 | Bangkok | Thailand | April 24 - May 2, 2009 | 15 | Lei Jin (China) | 47.50/50 | 42/36/30/23 |
| 11 | 2010 | Taipei | Chinese Taipei | April 23 - May 1, 2010 | 16 | Wang Szu-Pong (Chinese Taipei) | 43.80/50 | 32/28/23/18 |
| 12 | 2011 | Tel Aviv | Israel | May 1–9, 2011 | 16 | Wu Yukai (China) | 42.60/50 | 31/27/22/17 |
| 13 | 2012 | New Delhi | India | April 30 - May 7, 2012 | 21 | Yao Wenjie (China) | 43.60/50 | 35/31/25/19 |
| 14 | 2013 | Bogor | Indonesia | May 5–13, 2013 | 20 | Himawan Wicaksono Winarto (Indonesia) | 35.90/50 | 24/20/17/13 |
| 15 | 2014 | Singapore | Singapore | May 11–19, 2014 | 27 | Sun Yudong (China) | 45.50/50 | 40/34/29/22 |
| 16 | 2015 | Hangzhou | China | May 3–11, 2015 | 25 | Zhao Jinchao (China) | 45.50/50 | 30/26/21/16 |
| 17 | 2016 | Hong Kong | Hong Kong | May 1–9, 2016 | 27 | Zhang Tiancheng (China) | ?.?/50 | 38/33/28/21 |
| 18 | 2017 | Yakutsk | Russia | May 1–9, 2017 | 24 | Zhu Yaozheng (China) | 44.45/50 | 26/23/19/14 |
| 19 | 2018 | Hanoi | Vietnam | May 5–15, 2018 | 25 | Chen Tianyang (China) | 39.07/50 | ?/?/?/? |
| 20 | 2019 | Adelaide | Australia | May 5–13, 2019 | 23 | Grigorii Bobkov (Russia) | 33.40/50 | 28/25/20/16 |
| | 2020 | Not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic | Not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic | Not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic | Not held due to the COVID-19 pandemic | | | |
| 21 | 2021 | Taipei (online) | Chinese Taipei | May 17–24, 2021 | 26 | Manh Quan Nguyen (Vietnam) | 33.85/50 | 22/19/16/12 |
| 22 | 2022 | Dehradun (online) | India | May 21–31, 2022 | 27 | Fredy Yip (Australia) | 47.60/50 | 42/36/30/23 |
| 23 | 2023 | Ulaanbaatar | Mongolia | May 22–30, 2023 | 24 | Lang Chengchao (China) | 33.50/50 | 19/16/13/10 |
| 24 | 2024 | Kampar | Malaysia | June 3-10, 2024 | 28 | Qian Kunxiao (China) | 43.20/50 | 37/35/30/24 |
| 25 | 2025 | Dhahran | Saudi Arabia | May 4-12, 2025 | | | | |
| 26 | 2026 | | South Korea | | | | | |
| 27 | 2027 | | Thailand | | | | | |