The same total, twice
In 2025 his line read 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 0: five problems solved completely, and nothing at all on the sixth, the hardest of the competition. That was 35 points and joint twenty-seventh place among 630 contestants.
In 2026 it read 7, 2, 7, 7, 5, 7. The same total, assembled differently: the sixth problem solved outright this time, with the losses falling on the second and the fifth. The rank improved to seventeenth in a larger field of 666.
What the two shapes mean
Olympiad marking is a proof-reading exercise. Coordinators work through what a contestant has written and award points only for reasoning that holds, so a two means a real idea that did not close and a five means an argument almost complete.
The 2025 paper is the profile of a contestant who cleared everything within reach and ran into a wall. The 2026 paper is the profile of a contestant who got somewhere on every single problem, including the last one, and paid for it in partial deductions elsewhere. Both are worth 35. Only one of them included a complete solution to the final problem of the olympiad.
Hungary and the competition
Hungary is one of the competition's long-standing participants, and Hungarian teams are a regular presence in the medal tables. Like every other nation, Hungary may send at most six contestants, and its standing is the unofficial sum of those six scores.
Two consecutive golds from one of those six places is the strongest individual result a small team can produce short of a maximum. It means being inside roughly the top twelfth of the field, twice, against different problems and a different jury.
How medals are decided
The olympiad's rules fix proportions, not scores. No more than half the contestants receive a medal, and gold, silver and bronze are awarded in roughly a one to two to three ratio, so gold falls to about one contestant in twelve. In 2025, 35 points was enough, with a cluster of contestants sharing twenty-seventh place on that mark.
Because the threshold floats, comparing raw totals across years is misleading and comparing ranks is not. Szakács moved from twenty-seventh to seventeenth in the world while scoring exactly the same number of points, which says more about the 2026 paper than about either result.
What is documented, and what is not
Documented by the olympiad's own database: both years, both host cities, the field sizes, Hungary as his country, the per-problem scores, the totals of 35, the ranks and the two gold medals.
Not documented: his age or date of birth, which is why this page carries no birth year; his school or city; and anything about his life outside the competition. In Hungarian usage his name is written family name first, as Szakács Ábel, which is the form to search for in Hungarian-language coverage; searches using the unaccented form, Abel Szakacs, return the same person.
| Person | Country | Milestone | Age / Stat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ábel Szakács | Hungary | IMO gold medals in 2025 and 2026 | — |
| Colin Shanmo Tang | United States | A perfect 42/42 at the International Mathematical Olympiad, 2019 | — |
| Youngjun Cho | South Korea | A perfect 42/42 at the International Mathematical Olympiad, 2019 | — |
| Galiia Sharafetdinova | Russia | A perfect 42/42 at the International Mathematical Olympiad, 2022 | — |
| Ihor Pylaiev | Ukraine | A perfect 42/42 at the International Mathematical Olympiad, 2022 | — |
What is documented — and what is not
✓ Documented
- Gold and 35 points at IMO 2026 in Shanghai, ranked seventeenth
- Gold and 35 points at IMO 2025 on the Sunshine Coast, joint twenty-seventh
- 2026 per-problem scores 7, 2, 7, 7, 5, 7; 2025 scores 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 0
- Competed for Hungary in both years
? Unverified, disputed or wrong
- No age, date of birth or school in these sources
- No Hungarian press coverage was collected for this file
- Nothing documented outside the competition
Questions people ask about Ábel Szakács
What has Ábel Szakács won?
Gold medals at the International Mathematical Olympiad in 2025 and 2026, representing Hungary.
How old is Ábel Szakács?
No age or date of birth appears in the sources used here.
What were his scores?
35 out of 42 in both years: joint twenty-seventh in 2025 and seventeenth in 2026.
How were the two 35s different?
In 2025 he solved five problems and scored zero on the sixth. In 2026 he solved four outright, including the sixth, with partial marks on the second and fifth.
How is his name written in Hungarian?
Szakács Ábel, family name first, with acute accents on the vowels.
Is Ábel Szakács on Wikipedia?
No standalone English article is recorded for him in this file.
What does a gold medal take?
Gold goes to about one contestant in twelve, under rules capping medals at half the field in a one to two to three ratio.
Where is Ábel Szakács now?
The sources used here do not say.
Quick quiz: how well do you know Szakács’s story?
How many points did Ábel Szakács score in each of 2025 and 2026?
What did he score on the sixth problem in 2025?
Which country does he represent?
Sources
- IMO 2026 individual results — International Mathematical Olympiad (official), 2026
- IMO 2025 individual results — International Mathematical Olympiad (official), 2025
Checked by the Geniuses.club editorial team. Ages are given as of September 2026.
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