IMO programs of different nations?

I am somewhat involved with the national olympiad in Mexico.

Here is the official website.

In Mexico they do a national Olympiad where each state sends six students. The cut-offs are the same percentages as in the imo. The gold medallists are invited to several training camps (each a couple of weeks long). During these training camps participants write tests and are eliminated until they select the six imo participants. In between they write other national competitions and other international competitions like APMO or Centro-american olympiads. After IMO we also have the Ibero-American olympiad.

It is also importatnt to mention there are also other training camps for young students who don't get gold, like the training camp to go to the IWYMC and the training camp to go to Centro.(In fact most of the IMO participants had previously assisted to these other camps.

The material used to teach the basics can be found in these books. They also have a problem magazine published four times a year. However, the later classes are not tought from these materials as they do not have the level of an imo exam.


As for my personal recomendations:

I think you should try lots of shortlists from the IMO. If these are too hard try to solve national exams from countries with a level similar to Albania. You can find these at AOPS.

I recommend that you try to solve the problem of the day every day in AOPS. And read the various solutions for it also. You should also try the contest of the week. Finally, you should check out brilliant.org. They also give problems of the day, you should try to solve all three of them every day, they are pretty easier than IMO problems, but they are pretty good for learning new techniques.