Thirty-nine out of forty-two
The IMO gives six problems, each marked out of seven, so 42 is the ceiling. Zhang's row reads 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 4. Complete solutions to the first five, and more than half marks on the sixth, which is the paper's hardest question and the one that decides the order at the very top.
Only a handful of contestants finished above him. Five produced perfect 42s; Hongyi Tan of China took 40; Zhang's 39 was next, at rank seven. Immediately below him were Trong Khai Vo of Vietnam on 38 and a three-way tie on 37 that included his own teammate Alexander Wang.
Leading the American team
The United States scoreboard in 2025 makes his position clear. Zhang led with 39 points at rank seven, followed by Alexander Wang on 37 at rank nine, Andrew Lin and Ruilin Wang on 36 at rank twelve, Karn Chutinan on 35 at rank twenty-seven, and Hannah Fox on 33 at rank eighty-one. Five gold medals and a silver.
That is a formidable spread rather than a single spike, and it puts Zhang's result in proportion. He was not carrying an otherwise ordinary squad; he was the sharpest edge of one of the strongest teams in the room. In a year when the gold cut-off stood at 35 points, every one of his gold-medal teammates cleared it outright.
The field he came through
The 2025 olympiad drew 630 contestants to the Sunshine Coast, each selected through a national process that most countries run over several rounds and several months. In the United States that funnel begins with mass-participation examinations and narrows through a training camp to the handful who travel.
Seventh place in that company is a rarer outcome than the number suggests, because the top of an IMO table compresses. The difference between Zhang's 39 and a perfect 42 is a single partially solved problem, and the difference between 39 and the gold cut-off at 35 is four points spread across dozens of names.
What the table records — and what it does not
The firm facts are published by the organisers: the country, the six problem scores, the total, the rank, the medal, the year and the host location. There is no intermediary and no paraphrase. A result stated by the competition that awarded it is the strongest form of evidence a page like this can rest on.
It is also the entire record. The table gives no age, no date of birth, no school, no home state and no photograph. Nothing in the sources gathered here says where Zhang studies, what he plans to do, or whether he returned to the competition. Those are gaps in the published record, and they are listed here rather than filled.
Why the sixth problem is the whole story
The pattern in Zhang's row repeats across the top of every modern IMO table: sevens on five problems and a number in the last column that decides everything. The olympiad deliberately sets one question per paper that most of the field cannot finish, which turns the final ranking into a contest over partial credit on the hardest material.
That is why a four on problem six is worth recording as precisely as the total. It was the difference between seventh and a tie further down the table, and it is the sort of detail that disappears when a result is reported simply as a gold medal. In a competition where roughly a twelfth of the field takes gold, the number beside the medal is the part that carries information.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Qiao Zhang | United States | Thirty-nine points out of forty-two, seventh in the world, and first on th | — |
| Junghun Ju | South Korea | A perfect score at the International Mathematical Olympiad | — |
| Amber Li | Australia | Three consecutive EGMO gold medals | — |
| Aida Mitroi | Romania | Three consecutive EGMO gold medals | — |
| Alisa Volkova | Russia | She solved five of the six problems outright and finished twelfth in the w | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- 39 points of 42 at IMO 2025, rank 7, gold medal (official IMO results)
- Per-problem scores of 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 4
- Highest-scoring member of the United States team in a field of 630
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No age, birth year, school or home state in these sources
- No record of earlier or later olympiad appearances
- No published information about what he has done since 2025
Questions people ask about Qiao Zhang
What did Qiao Zhang achieve?
A gold medal and seventh place in the world at the 2025 International Mathematical Olympiad, with 39 points out of 42 in a field of 630.
How old is Qiao Zhang?
No source in this record gives his age or birth year. The IMO table publishes names, countries, scores, ranks and medals only.
Was he the best on the US team?
Yes. His 39 points were the highest of the six American contestants, ahead of Alexander Wang on 37.
How did the United States do in 2025?
Five golds and a silver: Zhang 39, Alexander Wang 37, Andrew Lin 36, Ruilin Wang 36, Karn Chutinan 35, and Hannah Fox 33 with silver.
What score was needed for gold in 2025?
Thirty-five points, according to the official results table.
Who won the 2025 IMO?
Five contestants finished on a perfect 42, among them Leyan Deng and Hengye Zhang of China, Warren Bei of Canada, Satoshi Kano of Japan and Ivan Chasovskikh.
Is Qiao Zhang on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article was found for him. The source used here is the official IMO results table.
Where is Qiao Zhang now?
No source in this record says. The documented trail is his row in the 2025 results.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Zhang’s story?
Where did Qiao Zhang finish at IMO 2025?
What was his total score?
Where was the 2025 olympiad held?
Sources
- IMO 2025 individual results — International Mathematical Olympiad, 2025
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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