18/08/2026
I’ve been looking through the numbers for the Israeli linguistics team. And the first thing that needs to be said, of course, is this: we were there. The Israeli flag was on the international stage, our students became part of this wonderfully crazy, high-energy event, and they did very well. Much better, in fact, than one might have expected from a team some of whose members only found out what linguistics problems were last autumn.
That means our training strategy made sense and produced results. We need to keep going!
For those interested, I’ll post links to the official results page in the comments. For now, I’ll just note that Israel ranked 35th out of 65 teams participating in the 2026 International Linguistics Olympiad in Bucharest.
Olga Besova, with a score of 60.7, won a silver medal in the individual contest. Maayan, Marta, and Seva fell just short of Honourable Mentions, and it is worth stressing that they were very close. As a reminder, this year Olya won gold, and Marta bronze, at the Asia Pacific Linguistics Olympiad, while Marta and Olya shared gold at the Israeli national round. So the team certainly has plenty to be proud of.
It is also worth pointing out that winning a medal at the International Linguistics Olympiad is noticeably harder than at many other international school Olympiads. At the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO), for example, medals are awarded to about half of the participants (2024 data), while at the Biology and Chemistry Olympiads the proportion is even higher. The IOL awards medals to only about one third of the participants.
And the new season is already just around the corner.
As usual, we will hold the selection round in late October or early November, so keep an eye out for announcements.
In the photo: the whole team together with team leader Julia Panchenko and observers Lev Svetlakov and Leonid Maslennikov.
