This is really fantastic. Aside from winning, it's great to see recognition in the press (and from the President, too) for young people pursuing intellectual challenges. Also cool to hear that the US team, despite not winning for 21 years, has actually been quite competitive as of late.

One interesting development in reactions to this news, which was mentioned in the article as well, was discussion about the gender composition of the team. The coach mentioned that there were 2 girls in the top 12 for the US, which is promising, but a lot of commenters are hoping for a better balance overall. This is on the heels of well-known scientists and academics being chastised for their comments about women in science. My happy solution? This lights the fire under educators and young women to bring more people into advanced math and hard sciences.

I've seen very little discussion, though, about the racial make-up of the team and how it reflects mathematics in general. It'd be great if in addition to reaching out more to young women, math (and science, tech, engineering) reached out to underrepresented minorities, too. While guys like NDT are great role models for all kids and especially young black kids, there's still a gap in academia/industry. The minorities not represented in the olympiad team (blacks, latinos, native americans, etc) are often the hardest hit by outsourcing and poverty.