International Chemistry Olympiad 2026

Through this school year, a group of our students, under the mentorship of Mr Andrej Smrdu from our chemistry department, worked towards gaining a place in competing team for the prestigious International Chemistry Olympiad.

Their hard work paid off as three Gimnazija Vič students were selected to be part of the four-person team representing Slovenia at the event to held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. The fourth member of the team was a student from Gimnazija Bežigrad, another secondary school in Ljubljana. The national team was selected independently by a group from the University of Ljubljana.

The delegation travelled to Tashkent over the summer holidays to take part in the event and we are very happy to say that they did incredibly well.

Over two long days of competition, the national groups had to prove their strong levels of both theoretical and practical knowledge. The need to demonstrate this overall grasp of chemistry combined with the pressure of working under stressful test conditions meant that they had to put everything they had learned over the past year and in their regular science classes to work.

Congratulations to Tisa Lombar who was awarded a silver medal and to Vid Kodrič and Lea Hrvatin who both received bronze medals.

We would like to thank our own chemistry department for the time they spent giving help to this group and to those from the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology of the University of Ljubljana who were invaluable in preparing our students for this occasion.

It is another great example of how cooperation between our school and other educational institutions can lead to incredibly positive results and we look forward to working together in the year ahead as we prepare for the 2027 Olympiad to be held in Taiwan.