Latvian whizzkid wins coding gold medal

This year, there was a fierce battle between 362 participants from 91 countries.

Ansis has come a long way to this gold victory, participating in the Olympics for the fourth time and having previously received both bronze and silver medals.

"You can't say that it was expected, but was a hoped-for result. But, of course, no one is given those medals for free. It is very easy to stay on the border of silver and gold, being close to gold, but not getting it," said the head of the Latvian delegation Mārtiņš Opmanis.

"He seemed to get a lot of points on the first day, but there were easier tasks and he didn't score as much as he should have, and after the first day he was 55th in the rankings. It was bad. Just barely a silver medal. But on the second day I looked, how he fought... In the minutes he spent on those tasks, he fulfilled the maximum he could," concluded Ansis' father, Andris Andersons.

Ansis' father says that he taught his son to think quickly from childhood. Andris himself is good at mathematics, so he took Ansis to a programming class after the 6th grade.

"There were lessons once a week. Every Saturday. Serious lessons. And the rest of the time – how much depends on yourself. Then it was how much he can motivate himself. The child gets bored. He wants to do something else, and then I had to think of all kinds of tricks for him... Maybe this task, maybe this rating could be achieved... Those five tasks or something like that, and then we went up like that," recalls the father of the talented young man.

So Ansis stayed with programming. The 19-year-old graduated from Druva secondary school this summer. The school was chosen precisely because of a good programming teacher. Now he has moved from Saldus region to Riga to continue studying programming at the University of Latvia.

Next year, Ansis will be able to test his skills at the next level in the student Olympics.

Well done, Ansis!