Sep 17, 2023
Region Name in Competition
Disclaimer: this is just a silly thought of mine. I have no intention on making fun of any competition or country in this post.
When I was in high school, I participated in Asia-Pacific Informatics Olympiad (APIO). Given that the name contains "Asia-Pacific", naturally I thought "Oh, must be an olympiad for countries in Asia-Pacific region". Then I saw that in the ranklist, there are Iran, Israel, etc. Weird. I don't think a good geography knowledge is required to know that those countries are not in Asia-Pacific region.
Anyway, in case it is needed, Wikipedia page of Asia-Pacific.
By the way, APIO does not have a dedicated website anymore. Back then there is apio.org or apio-olympiad.org (I forgot the name) maintained by idk who. Therefore, I will just use APIO's definition from the its most recent edition. The definition of APIO, at least by the 2023 edition, is the following:
The Asia-Pacific Informatics Olympiad (APIO) is an IOI-like competition for delegations within the Asian and Western Pacific regions.
I think the countries I mentioned before are not in Western Pacific region too.
What about other competition? Let's take a look at Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad (APMO). Oh cool, this one has an official website. Let's see..
The Asian Pacific Mathematics Olympiad (APMO) is a mathematical competition for countries in the Pacific-Rim Region.
Okay, I have a question: why not name it Pacific-Rim Mathematics Olympiad instead? But whatever. Pacific-Rim, never heard of that region before. Let's look for a map.
Okay, I think I can recognize the blue-colored countries. Let's look at the participating countries...
Well, I am pretty sure India, Qatar, etc. are not part of the Pacific-Rim region.
Anyway, I don't want to check too many olympiads or competitions, so let's stop with only two examples.
I believe when they first started, those competitions were held for countries in those regions. However, as time passed, the competition grew larger. Eventually, countries outside of the region joined. Why did they do so? Well, it might be 1) there is no regional competition in their region, or 2) they are allowed to join, so why not?
Personally, I find it confusing. Why put the name of the region, if it is now irrelevant? I understand that it is rooted in the history of the competition itself. Also, in some way, it is nice to see competitions grow. However, at this point, I felt we will only have "International Competition A", "International Competition B", and so on, where the region name actually does not matter. It is just there for historical reason.