Every night after school, Gen continues to train in the homestretch with her teammates for the EGMO, by solving problems from past EGMOs, but she feels increasingly distant from who she considered, pre-AIME, as her close friends. Let's hope that everything will be back to normal once I return from Kutaisi in a little more than a week; meanwhile, we make a killing because of promotional merchandise sales for the VMC and even more so the EGMO. In the last case, the promotional merchandise will become commemorative in the near future, Gen thinks while she prepares her baggage for the great departure for Georgia, all expenses paid by the MAA.
"Safe travels and bring us back the gold medal!" Gen's parents encourage their daughter.
"Show these drug addicts that you can do it without drugs!" Krista continues.
"Krista, until proven otherwise, the only drug user is the one whose withdrawal drove me to go, Lucy!" Gen tells her friend.
"One last kiss before the departure!" Cory asks his girlfriend, despite this competition straining their relationship, and the USAMO before that.
And so many townsfolk seem to rush out of their homes to look at their darling one last time before the start of the competition. The star who made them live so many mathletics highlights for the last 15 months. The girl that made the local girls harbor desire to excel in a field that they never thought of being able to do so before. Girls as young as four years old dream of having the required mathematical talent to compete, at a minimum, at the VMC, or even at the EGMO or at the IMO.
The next day, on the first flight that brings the team to Tbilisi (with layovers), and, from there, a train for Kutaisi, the four girls on the team are in the same row on the plane; they start doing non-mathematical activities they couldn't do up to this point, too busy to train.
Meanwhile, mathletics team practices no longer have the same allure, especially since there are much fewer people attending the session without being on the team than before. Krista oversees the multi-variable calculus portion of the session, while Trent spends more time with the newest two girls, Imélie and Jennifer. Especially Jennifer, who seems to require a bit more support for the kind of questions asked at the Purple Comet, now that Marcia won't be there because of her quiz bowl commitments, which now forces the team to hold two practices per week, and therefore Imélie to be absent for these two days.
Without Geneviève it's just not the same; it's less stimulating for Marcia and I, but she worked so hard and in part with me to get there. May we train the next generation, Krista thinks, while Marcia, mixes each multi-variable calculus problem with quiz bowl questions from past national championships.
"You seem to have too much confidence in your multi-variable calculus skills; why are you leaving partial derivative or triple integral problems unfinished?" Randy asks, realizing his girlfriend is not very focused on math.
"I care about quiz bowl, too, I did enough partial derivatives and two or three-variable integrals, last year and this year, to release the pedal mathematically a little bit" the mathlete tells the cornerback.
"That's true! How could I forget that?"
Once the session ends, Marcia emails class notes and homework (but there was no new assignment in AP English, not in AP World History) to Geneviève. But she has complete confidence in her friend to do her AP Statistics and Physics assignments quickly and without complication. For the national quiz bowl championship, one might be wondering how many teams will have a player with 10 and higher on the AIME? Other than one of the TJHSST teams obviously. We are by far the strongest team in the state for math and sciences, we can make Imélie play more against a school we know is mathematically weak, but if we play TJHSST or equivalent, I'm the one you want, Marcia thinks, while she pores over the files of potential opponents with Imélie.
"Now that Gen is not here, we can spend more time together, and do something other than math. You will tell me, Ted, it was a good thing to be able to do math with her... but she made me sick at times" Krista then tells her boyfriend.
"But I will show you some football drills. Sometimes you wear Vans Skate Clouds, which aren't appropriate to play football with, but we'll start with your forty-yard dash"
Ted might be a little slow on the forty-yard dash, but he can easily take tackle attempts that can mince other people. On the opposite end, Randy is capable of all defensive speed bursts. Krista is slow, but I know she isn't very athletic, Ted thinks, while he watches her run forty yards on the football field, as if to attempt catching a ball in passing.
Once in Kutaisi, the four girls, with their coaches, are guided by a local guide, which bring them to their rooms to sleep in for the entire duration of the competition. Without surprise, once their access to wi-fi configured, the contestants receive class notes and homework of all kinds that they hurry in doing, knowing they all accumulated delays to even be able to come to this city. And they must deal with jet lag... they all go to sleep once their homework from home are completed.
But once they awaken, they realize it gets late, they change clothes for what they pass for soirée outfits, and they have little time before they can attend the Thursday night banquet, on the campus of Akaki Tsereteli State University. There isn't a whole lot of people left at this time, I can't meet with that many contestants. Like the Dutch one... the nationalities of the stakeholders are clearly indicated on the tags distributed at check-in, as well as their names, Geneviève thinks, while the US team starts dispersing, with the other three contestants trying to each meet with a girl of a different nationality. Xiao was faster to meet the Dutch, while Gen ended up being at the same table as a German competitor.
"Willkommen! Mahlzeit!" the German competitor tells Gen.
"I... don't understand" Gen answers her, a little annoyed while her own facial pH becomes basic.
"Welcome. I am Claudia"
"Genevieve, she answers while trembling like a leaf"
Ouch, big ouch. If, normally, my face is acidic, around 5.6, as I blush, my face becomes basic because it gorges with blood, which is basic, Gen thinks while Xiao is living the same thing with the Dutch competitor, Griet. Xiao must have realized that elite mathletics is not just about East Asian ethnicities, and not just with Gen!
But they start eating, initially with apprehension, the food this served at this banquet, made up of local dishes, which seem foreign to them in a certain way.
However, even after leaving the hospital, Lucy isn't at the end of her troubles; even though her parents seem to be happy that she's still alive after this overdose on Ritalin, her mental condition has deteriorated, and she has a lot of trouble concentrating because of chronic fatigue feelings. For the first time she failed a quiz in class, her parents are still disappointed and being a visibly depressed Lucy to the police station. They wonder again how their daughter could have hidden her drug addiction for so long.
"I caught my daughter attempting to fuel her Ritalin cravings illegally, and she was hospitalized for an overdose to it not long ago" Lucy's father tells the agent.
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"You're under arrest! You have the right to remain silent, and everything you may say may be held against you!" the agent informs Lucy and handcuffs her.
Even though, to the eyes of the police, Lucy is apparently a spotless girl, Lucy goes to her holding cell with her head lowered. How is that possible? Barely two weeks ago, I was in the homestretch for the EGMO, and now I can't even pass a simple routine quiz in class? Has this overdose destroyed my intelligence? What a disaster! I ruined everything for TJHSST's mathletics! Lucy thinks while a before-after mental image appears in her mind, damaged by this drug overdose. Without realizing there are no other inmates in this place, she is alone in that cell. I hope that I will have a more pleasant time in prison if, either with the other inmates or with the jailer, I talked to them about the EGMO but as a joke. They simply won't believe me... and even less that I used to be an elite mathlete, with all the intellectual implications it carries!
Poor Lucy, which, at the beginning of the night, Washington time, is detained at the police station for a drug infraction!
Nevertheless, before returning to their rooms, Gen and her teammates had their fills of encounters with other competitors that were enriching, to the extent possible, while a little awkward initially. Two days before the competition proper.
And Geneviève's parents receive the visit of so many in this country town, wondering if they can, for the opening ceremony, watch that at their home. Starting with the parents of her teammates.
"Listen, I know it's my daughter we're talking about, but the opening ceremony of this competition is held early in the morning. For them it's late afternoon over there in Kutaisi, at least from what the coach told me, and I think so many at school would want to watch the town's darling. With all the efforts she made to get there, it is well-deserved" Gen's mom tells the other parents of mathletes.
"Right, so the competition itself will happen at night!" Cory's father exclaims.
"Even if they could livecast the competition itself, if you listened to my daughter talking about it, you wouldn't want to watch Gen for four and a half hours per night for two nights!" Krista's father claims, who has seen her daughter solve all the same practice problems that Gen solved to practice for the USAMO. "And it's not like the Duels of the Parishes or the Math Madness!"
"Even if the organizing committee acknowledged the public is totally powerless over the problems, they will never show the problems while the contestants try to solve them!" Marcia's father explains.
"And who would want to watch an attrition race during a three-question test? My daughter spent a weekend with Gen to try solving the entirety of the most recent IMO under the same conditions! She claims EGMO questions are questions submitted for the IMO but from the short or long list of rejected questions" Gen's dad asks the other mathletes' parents.
"So essentially the same. Marcia had a brief overview; on the spot, she was disappointed of missing out on the USAMO by one question on the AIME, but the qualification to the quiz bowl state championship and the subsequent silver medal made her less bitter about her mathletic failures" Marcia's dad points out.
"I think the result announcement on Monday night will be more interesting to watch than the contest itself. Or the closing ceremony" Krista's father comments.
"That we livecast, at the auditorium, both ceremonies then, tomorrow morning and Tuesday morning, and the announcement of the results will be made at the closing ceremony" Cory's father then suggests.
As much as the state's media coverage of the EGMO focuses on Gen, people have, globally, no idea where the United States stand relative to other participating countries who, it must be said, come from all over the world, despite the organizers being European. Depending on who one asks, the American team will be outside the medal table (and that's the most misogynistic or irreducible fans from the other two schools of the parish), or there's a good chance to win (ad these are the most fanatic, including but not limited to, the families of mathletes).
Meanwhile, at Kutaisi, the 4 girls are assembled with their coach before the treasure hunt held on campus prior to the opening ceremony.
"You are the girls with the brightest mathematical minds in America! They said girls couldn't be good at math, they said math was not for everyone to get good at; you proved everyone wrong at every turn! Now that you're here, for some of you this one contest will be your swan song as mathletes, in which case don't try to coast on the EGMO glory for the rest of your lives!" the coach harangues the mathletes.
Ouch: our coach starts sounding like Tara, too, as if stereotype threat was that important! She only needs to come to us after the EGMO and she will know that you don't need to attend a private girls' school to build a mathletics team whose most important contributors are girls! But I am here, it's a great victory for Louisiana girls; on top of that I lived in a region that sorely lacked in mathletic culture until I enter the fray!! Gen thinks while the coach issues a warning to her players.
"There's a line from a book one of my teammates talked about on the day of my math season's opener against Permian that, paraphrased, summarizes that I am currently living. No candle burns out more quickly than that of the high school mathlete" Gen shares her observations.
"Permian? That Permian?" the coach asks, recognizing the school not for some mathletic achievement but for the book Gen refers to.
"Yes"
"Remember that, once in college, math contests won't carry the same importance it does for us now. I will not sugar-coat it: make the most of the next two days!" the coach keeps talking.
During this treasure hunt, a clue found simultaneously by two teams gives rise to Geneviève running a good (at least to her eyes) 40 yards for a second clue. Except she gives the impression to the other mathlete that she tries to catch a football in passing. Pre-pandemic I played a little bit of baseball in middle school but in class only. I wonder why I try to rush on a treasure hunt clue like this, but the Hungarian gave me the impression she sought to steal the clue, she thinks while the second clue brings her to search the medical library for a third clue.
But as the treasure hunt progresses, the various contestants get lost in the city, knowing they must allot some time to return to the main auditorium of the university for the competition's opening ceremony.
For which Cory prepares the school's auditorium's audiovisual for a livecast, knowing that some students, their parents as well as other Venomous Agendas fans want to watch what they consider one of the highlights of the mathletic season, or the superlative highlight.
And for good reason: there are only at most four schools in the country which, in a given year, send a girl to compete at the EGMO. (And at most six for the IMO but the IMO is held after the end of the school year) For so many Venomous Agendas fans, it would be, for all practical purposes, as if one of their qualified for the Olympics before the end of high school. The apotheosis!
And the parish radio which also covers the opening ceremony by parts. The ceremony begins with a performance of Georgia's national anthem by local musicians, then speeches from Kutaisi's mayor, the rector of the host university, and finally, the governor of Imereti, a region of Georgia of which Kutaisi is the capital. They all talk about how the contestants will be called upon to play an important role in the future of mathematics and sciences, and of how it's a honor for the city and Georgia to host this competition.
"On behalf of all contestants" the Georgian contestants begin in unison, with big accents.
"On behalf of all coaches and officials" the Georgian chef de mission and her deputy continue, knowing that the chefs de mission and their deputies grade the contestants' copies, their countrywomen to be exact.
"We promise to participate in the European Girls Mathematical Olympiad by abiding by the rules, and in the spirit of inclusion, fair-play and equality. Together we stand in solidarity and commit ourselves to mathletics without doping, without cheating and without any form of discrimination. We do this for the honor of our teams, and to make the world a better place through mathematics" the six ladies swear in unison.
And then comes the parade of nations, with the contestants and their coaches that raise in turn, in alphabetical order of the 3-letter codes of the participating countries, exception made of Georgia, whose representatives raise first because of their oath swearing. The happy part of the opening ceremony. When the Americans' turn comes, near the end, the crowd in attendance shouts two things, either U-S-A! U-S-A! or Venomous! Agendas! Depending on who you talk to.
My dad told the parents of all the school's mathletes that I did the latest IMO in full, with Gen, under the same conditions? We did so without proctoring, without access to each other, the weekend prior to the USAMO! By basing on it, we had, at the time, good hope for at least thirty points at the USAMO, and, if applicable, at the IMO, so there is good hope that she brings back, from the EGMO, the gold medal. That was one of my last moments of happiness with her before everything goes south. We felt like we were the brightest girls in the world for a weekend. But I can't help myself but to think about what could have been if we could actually qualify for the EGMO and the IMO using the parish newspaper's methodology, which was the methodology in use prior to the subprime crisis. If our coach didn't destabilize us before the start of the USAMO! Maybe we'd be at Kutaisi together and one of us would compete at the IMO at Bath, maybe even the two of us! Krista mentally relives these events as a flashback before leaving the auditorium and going to her course.