Asian Physics Olympiad

Last updated June 12, 2025

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.^[1] 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.^[2]

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.^[3]

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^[3] 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.^[4] 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.^[5] It was first used on 10th APhO in Thailand Archived 2009-09-03 at the Wayback Machine .

Summary

Information on previous years^[6]^[7] 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 Jun-liang (China)	44.75/50	38/33/27/21
2	2001	Taipei	Chinese Taipei	April 22 - May 1, 2001	12	Hsin-Yu Tsai (Chinese Taipei)	34.50/50	28/25/20/16
3	2002	Singapore	Singapore	May 6–14, 2002	15	Gu Chunhui (China)	40.59/50	35/30/25/19
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	Ruitian Lang (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	Szu Po Wang (Chinese Taipei)	43.80/50	32/28/23/18
12	2011	Tel Aviv	Israel	May 1–9, 2011	16	Yukai Wu (China)	42.60/50	31/27/22/17
13	2012	New Delhi	India	April 30 - May 7, 2012	21	Wenjie Yao (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	Jinchao Zhao (China)	48.00/50	30/26/21/16
17	2016	Hong Kong	Hong Kong	May 1–9, 2016	27	Tiancheng Zhang (China)	48.90/50	38/33/28/21
18	2017	Yakutsk	Russia	May 1–9, 2017	24	Yaozheng Zhu (China)	44.45/50	26/23/19/14
19	2018	Hanoi	Vietnam	May 5–15, 2018	25	Chen Tianyang (China)	39.07/50	24/21/17/13
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 ^[8]
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	Chengchao Lang (China)	33.50/50	19/16/13/10
24	2024	Kampar	Malaysia	June 3-10, 2024	28	Alexandru Momoiu (Romania - Guest Team) Qian, Kunxiao (China)	45.55/50 43.20/50	37/35/30/24
25	2025	Dhahran	Saudi Arabia	May 4-12, 2025	30	Hyeokjoon Lee (South Korea)		29/23/16/8
26	2026	Busan	South Korea	May 17-25, 2026
27	2027		Thailand

References

↑ "APhO -Home". asianphysicsolympiad.org.
↑ APhO history
1 2 "Statistics of Participant Countries of APhO" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2018. Retrieved 29 July 2018.
↑ "Minutes of the Meetings of the International Board during the XXXII International Physics Olympiad in Antalya (Turkey) June 28 – July 6, 2001". Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2009.
↑ "Statutes of the Asian Physics Olympiad". Archived from the original on 26 July 2018. Retrieved 29 July 2018.
↑ "APhO - Past and Future Organizers". Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2016.
↑ "APhO -Minutes". asianphysicsolympiad.org. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
↑ "APHO 2020" . Retrieved 2020-03-31.^{[ permanent dead link ]}

External links

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[1] "APhO -Home". asianphysicsolympiad.org.

[2] APhO history

[:0-3] 1 2 "Statistics of Participant Countries of APhO" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 29 July 2018. Retrieved 29 July 2018.

[4] "Minutes of the Meetings of the International Board during the XXXII International Physics Olympiad in Antalya (Turkey) June 28 – July 6, 2001". Archived from the original on March 4, 2016. Retrieved May 4, 2009.

[5] "Statutes of the Asian Physics Olympiad". Archived from the original on 26 July 2018. Retrieved 29 July 2018.

[6] "APhO - Past and Future Organizers". Archived from the original on 20 December 2016. Retrieved 14 December 2016.

[7] "APhO -Minutes". asianphysicsolympiad.org. Retrieved 2023-04-14.

[8] "APHO 2020" . Retrieved 2020-03-31.^{[ permanent dead link ]}

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