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G.O.A.T. – International Mathematical Modelling Challenge 2021

06 May 2021

Well done to four members of our Lower Sixth, who recently gave up five days of their Easter break in order to compete in the International Mathematical Modelling Challenge (IM2C).

As part of the competition, Aidan, Bleddyn, Harry and Tristan were tasked with a series of interesting challenges, which focussed on maths and sport.

The boys were set a warm-up challenge where they had to create a mathematical model to determine the greatest tennis female player of 2018, based on data from the final four rounds of the sport’s major championships during that year. Assessing various factors, the four applied a formula and finalised their unique model, which concluded that Serena Williams was the greatest female tennis player of 2018.

Utilising their experience from the warm up challenge, they were tasked with creating another model to determine the Greatest of All Time (G.O.A.T.) in any individual sport of their choosing. For this second challenge, the boys selected Darts as their sport and began compiling a massive database for them to analyse, including the number of world championships won by a player, their three-dart average and checkout success ratio. Unsurprisingly, Phil Taylor, the most decorated darts player in the history of the game, was deemed to be darts’ G.O.A.T. However, it wasn’t as clear cut as you might imagine!

The penultimate aspect of the five-day challenge saw the team work out how to apply their newly-founded mathematical model to suit any individual sport and, later, to a team sport.

Finally, the boys had to present their findings and sum them up in non-technical language to the fictitious editor of a magazine, Top Sport, why their model and results were the best.

It was certainly an interesting way to spend a portion of their well-deserved Easter breaks, and we would like to thank Aidan, Bleddyn, Harry and Tristan for their efforts, as they await their results from the IM2C judging panel.