Forty-two out of forty-two
The EGMO 2023 scoreboard, published by the olympiad, records Fidan Garayeva of Azerbaijan with a full 42 points and a gold medal. The paper consists of six problems, each marked out of seven, so a perfect total means six complete solutions accepted without reservation by the coordinators.
That last point matters more than the arithmetic. Olympiad marking is done by coordination, where a contestant's written argument is examined line by line against the official solution and partial credit is negotiated between the markers and the team leaders. Forty-two means nothing was negotiated away.
A rare year at the top
Garayeva was not alone. The 2023 scoreboard records fourteen perfect scores, an unusually large group. Among them were all four members of the Chinese team — Shuwen Hu, Lai Yuan, Sihan Su and Yiran Qiu — along with Maria Drencheva of Bulgaria, Nogah Friedman of Israel, Polina Henyk of Ukraine, Isabella Zhu and Vivian Loh of the United States, Xiangyue Nan of Australia, and two Turkish contestants, Melek Güngör and İrem Gülce Yazgan.
A cluster of perfect papers says something about the paper as well as the contestants. When fourteen competitors clear every problem, the examination has been set at a level the very top of the field can exhaust, and the ranking at the summit becomes a tie rather than an order.
Azerbaijan on the scoreboard
The 2023 table lists roughly fifty countries, most fielding teams of four, which places the field at around two hundred contestants. Azerbaijan is not among the traditional powers of that table, and a perfect score from its team is the sort of result that stands out on the page rather than confirming a pattern.
The scoreboard offers no commentary on it. It gives a name, a country, six problem scores and a total, and leaves the significance to be read from the numbers around it. In Garayeva's row, every problem column holds a seven.
What the olympiad asks for
EGMO problems are proofs. A contestant who finds the right answer but cannot demonstrate why it must be right earns little; a contestant who constructs a complete argument for a single hard problem can outscore several partial attempts. The scoreboard makes the effect visible: sevens appear often against individual problems, and totals near the ceiling do not.
Everyone in the hall in Portorož had already been selected through a national process to be there. A perfect paper means outperforming that entire field on every question set, which is why the medal that follows is a formality rather than the story.
What is documented — and what is not
The firm facts come from the olympiad's own scoreboard: a score of 42 out of 42 at EGMO 2023, held in Portorož, Slovenia, competing for Azerbaijan, with a gold medal, and thirteen other contestants achieving the same total.
Nothing personal is published alongside it. No date of birth, age, school, city or photograph appears in the source, and there is no interview and no record of what she has done since. Whether she competed at other olympiads, before or after 2023, is not recorded on this page, and no later result has been found in the sources gathered here.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Perfect score of 42 out of 42 at EGMO 2023 (official scoreboard)
- Competed for Azerbaijan; awarded a gold medal
- Fourteen contestants recorded perfect scores that year
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No date of birth, age, school or home town in the source
- No interview, photograph or personal detail published with the result
- No record of other olympiads or of anything after 2023
Questions people ask about Fidan Garayeva
What did Fidan Garayeva achieve?
A perfect score of 42 out of 42 at the European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad 2023, with a gold medal, competing for Azerbaijan.
How is a perfect score possible?
The paper sets six problems marked out of seven each. A perfect total means all six proofs were accepted in full during marking.
How old is Fidan Garayeva?
No source in this record gives her age or date of birth. The scoreboard publishes names, countries and scores only.
Was she the only perfect score?
No. Fourteen contestants scored 42 out of 42 at EGMO 2023, including the entire Chinese team.
Is Fidan Garayeva on Wikipedia?
No Wikipedia article was found for her. The official EGMO scoreboard is the primary published record.
Where was EGMO 2023 held?
In Portorož, Slovenia, with roughly fifty countries taking part, most fielding teams of four.
Where is Fidan Garayeva now?
No source in this record states what she has done since 2023. That is a gap in the reporting.
Does a perfect score mean she won?
With fourteen perfect papers, the top of the 2023 table is a tie rather than a single first place.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Garayeva’s story?
What did Fidan Garayeva score at EGMO 2023?
Which country did she compete for?
How many perfect scores were there in 2023?
Sources
- EGMO 2023 scoreboard — European Girls' Mathematical Olympiad (official), 2023-04
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
Discover More Child Prodigies
50+ stories of contemporary young geniuses changing chess, music, science, and art.
Explore All Prodigies →
