The 61st edition of the International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) was scheduled for July this year in St. Petersburg, Russia, but was postponed to September due to Covid-19. There was hope that the pandemic would slow down, but as this did not happen, an alternative had to be found. Thus, today IMO's start in a totally innovative virtual format, designed over the last few months, with all the security protocols in force on the internet.

The measures include: an examination center in each participating country or territory, supervised by a neutral IMO commissioner. The examinations will be observed by webcams, with video images sent to the surveillance team in Russia. There will be a window of 4 hours and 30 minutes in the UTC time zone in which each test must start, so that there is no time between the completion of an exam in one country and the start of an exam in another country.

Portugal will be represented by Leonardo Tavares (16 years old), Nuno Carneiro (18 years old), Pedro Costa Dias (18 years old), Rui Zhu Wang (17 years old), Tiago Marques (16 years old) and Tiago Mourão (16 years old). The Portuguese team also includes Joana Teles, team leader, João Santos, tutor, and Alfredo Costa and Cristina Caldeira as observers. Portuguese students will make the exams at the Department of Mathematics of the University of Coimbra.

Portugal's participation in these competition is organized by the Portuguese Mathematical Society, and the selection and preparation of students is in charge of the Delfos Project of the Department of Mathematics of the University of Coimbra.