Minutes of the Meetings of the International Board during the XXXVIII International Physics
Olympiad in Isfahan (Iran)July 13 – 22, 2007

1. The following 69 countries were present at the 38 th International Olympiad:
Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria,Cambodia, Canada, China, Colombia, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark,Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Ghana, Great Britain, Greece, Hong Kong,
Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia,Lithuania, Malaysia, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro (*), Nepal (*), The Netherlands,Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore,Slovakia, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Suriname, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan (ChineseTaipei), Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, USA and Vietnam.
(*) - new countries invited by the Organizing Committee to the Olympiads this year.
In addition, the following four countries were represented by observers:
Afghanistan, Kuwait, Liechtenstein, and Macedonia.

2. Results of marking the papers by the organisers were presented.
The best score (48,8 points) was achieved by Youngjoon Choi from South Korea (Absolutewinner of the 38th IPhO). The following limits for awarding the medals and the honourable
mention were established according to the Statutes:
Gold Medal
Silver Medal
Bronze Medal
Honourable Mention

44 points
38 points
33 points
22 points

According to the limits 37 Gold Medals, 46 Silver Medals, 51 Bronze Medals and 81
Honourable Mentions were awarded. The list of the scores of the winners and the studentsawarded with honourable mentions were distributed to all the delegations.

3. In addition to the regular prizes the following special prizes were awarded:for the best score (Absolute winner)o Youngjoon Choi (South Korea)
for the best score in the experimental part of the competition:o Tomas Bzdusek (Slovakia)
for the best score in the theoretical part of the competition:

ooo
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Xingyue Peng (China)
Gabor Konya (Hungary)
Aoxi Li (China)
for the best score among female participants:o Kseniya Solovyeva (Russia)
GorzkowskiPrize(for the best participant among the countries that joined the IPhO 2007 for the first time)o Bishal Lamichhane (Nepal)

4. President of the IPhOs informed the International Board that Prof. Gunter Lind (Germany)
and Dr. Hans-Uno Bengtsson (Sweden), have passed away during the past year. TheInternational Board commemorated Prof. Gunter Lind and Dr. Hans-Uno Bengtsson with aMinute of Silence.

5. At the beginning of the second meeting of the International Board the sudden death of ourpresident, Waldemar Gorzkowski, was commemorated with a Minute of Silence.

6. The International Board accepted the propositions of the Advisory Committee that Prof.
Maija Ahtee, secretary of the IPhOs, would act as the president until the next International
Physics Olympiad, 2008. Likewise, Prof. Helmuth Mayr (Austria) was proposed and acceptedto act as the secretary until the next Olympiad.

7. During the discussion of the experimental problem a subcommittee consisting of Dr. Juan
Leon (Spain), Dr. Florence Robine (France), and Mr. Robin Hughes (Great Britain) wasformed. Together with the members of the Academic Committee they prepared an improved
version of the text by taking into account the remarks expressed during the preliminary
discussion.
8. During the grading of the students’ solutions the local graders consulted some problems
concerning the interpretation of the criteria etc. with the following three leaders designated tothis work by the International Board: Dr. Juan Leon (Spain), Dr. Leong Chuan Kwek(Singapore), and Prof. Ming-Juey Lin (Taiwan, Chinese Taipei)

9. The International Board discussed a proposal of changing the Statutes. (The text of theproposal was disseminated to all leaders more than three months in advance). The proposal
formulated by Dr. Jaan Kalda (Estonia), Prof. Helmuth Mayr (Austria), and Dr. Gunnar
Friege (Germany) referred to the awarding system used at the Olympiads. This proposal wasrejected. (Voting: total number of Members of the International Board, 137, required minimumof votes 92; number of votes in favour 91).

10. The Vietnamese delegates handed out printed materials about the IPHO-2008 to alldelegations.

11. At the end of the Olympiad, acting on behalf of the organizers of the next International
Physics Olympiad, Prof. Hong Khoi Phan (Vietnam) announced that the 39th International
Physics Olympiad will be organized in Hanoi, Vietnam on July 20th – 29th 2008 and cordiallyinvitedalltheparticipating
countries
toattend
thecompetition.

......................................... ......................................... .........................................
Dr.M.Reza
Ejtehadi Prof.Maija
Ahtee Prof.HelmuthMayr
Headofthe Acting
president Secretary
Academic Comitteeof the IPhOsof the IPhOs
Isfahan, July 2007