Hi! Since I couldn’t find an official one, I decided to post a step-by-step editorial for Balkan OI 2025 Tiling Madness — one of my favorite problems from last year’s OIs.

You can find it here: BOI 2025 Tiling Madness — Full Editorial

This is my first (posted) editorial, so, if you have any feedback, please share it in the comments :)

JBOI 2026 will be held in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina from the 22nd to the 28th of September. The official website is https://jboi2026.bhoi.ba/.

Here is Cyprus' team:

• Alexis Tsaggaris (alexistsa) — 4th time at JBOI, 0 attempts left
• Constantinos Lioudakis (Constantinospro) — 1st time at JBOI, 2 attempts left
• Christoforos Pittalis (christoforos.pittalis) — 2nd time at JBOI, 0 attempts left
• Andreas Charalambides (charalambides.a1810) — 2nd time at JBOI, 0 attempts left

Share your country's team in the comments and I'll add it to the table.

Good luck and have fun to all participants!

BOI 2026 will be held in Tirana, Albania from the 14th to the 20th of September. The official website is https://boi2026.al/.

Here is Cyprus' team:

• Mariza Paspalli (mariza_CY) — 3rd time at BOI, 2 attempts left
• Alexander Minko (sanya37y) — 1st time at BOI, 0 attempts left
• Alexis Tsaggaris (alexistsa) — 2nd time at BOI, 3 attempts left
• Sofoclis Andronikou (le_monk) — 1st time at BOI, 2 attempts left

Share your country's team in the comments and I'll add it to the table.

Good luck and have fun to all participants!

Hi! Like last year, I decided to make a blog with all the information we know about the 2026 OIs.

Note that text in italics is unofficial.

Like last time, please share the info you know (websites, locations, dates etc.) in the comments. Thanks in advance to everyone who contributes!

International

IOI 2026 🇺🇿

Location: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Dates: August 9-16, 2026
Official site: https://ioi2026.uz/

IIOT 2026 🇷🇴

Location: Neamț, Romania
Dates: May 23-28, 2026
Schedule: https://iio.team/schedule/

IATI 2026 🇧🇬

Location: Burgas, Bulgaria
Dates: April 15-19, 2026

Junior

InfO(1)Cup 2026 🌐

Location: Online
Dates: February 6-15, 2026
Official site: https://info1cup.com/

KhIMIOs 2026 🇺🇿

Location: Tashkent, Uzbekistan
Dates: June 1–7, 2026
Official site: https://www.khimio.uz/

Europe

EGOI 2026 🇮🇹

Location: Cesenatico, Italy
Dates: May 12-18 2026
Official site: https://egoi2026.it/
EGOI stats: https://stats.egoi.org/editions/2026/

Baltic OI 2026 🇫🇮

Location: Espoo, Finland
Dates: April 15–19, 2026
Official site: https://boi2026.cses.fi/

WEOI 2026 🇱🇺

Location: Luxembourg (Hybrid)
Dates: June 26–28, 2026
Official site: https://weoi.org/weoi-2026/

CEOI 2026 🇸🇮

Location: Ljubljana, Slovenia
Dates: July 5-7, 2026
Official site: https://ceoi2026.acm.si/

Balkan OI 2026 🇦🇱

Location: Tirana, Albania
Dates: September 14-20, 2026 Official site: https://boi2026.al/

Junior

EJOI 2026 🇱🇹🇺🇦

Location: Kaunas, Lithuania (Co-organized by Ukraine and Lithuania)
Dates: July 24-30, 2026
Official site: https://www.ejoi2026.lmio.lt/

JBOI 2026 🇧🇦

Location: Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dates: September 22-28, 2026
Official site: https://jboi2026.bhoi.ba/

Asia & Pacific

APIO 2026 🌐🇹🇼

Location: Online (Organized by Taiwan)
Dates: May 9-10, 2026
Official site: https://www.apio2026.ntnu.tw/home

Africa

NAOI 2026 🌐🇱🇾

Location: Online (Organized by Libya)
Dates: April 18, 2026
Official site: https://naoi2026.ly/

Hi, Codeforces! 2025 is almost over, so I decided to post some things I learned from this year's olympiads.

It's been a crazy year for me — I participated in 6 olympiads and even managed to get a gold medal in JBOI and EGOI. There was so much I learned, so I decided to post the 6 most important lessons.

Also, I definitely still have a lot to learn so please share your own stories and lessons learned in the comments!

Lesson 1: It's okay if you're unmotivated

How can you stay consistent when you’re not motivated? Well, the answer is actually... don’t. I spent way too much time during the school year trying to practice and stay as consistent as the previous years even though I didn't really feel like it.

Being unmotivated doesn't mean you don't enjoy CP as much — maybe you're just tired, stressed, or disappointed by your performance in a contest (which is not necessarily wrong!).

Practicing should never be something you do just because you have to. Nothing will ruin your motivation more than CP feeling like a chore, so simply practice whenever — and however — you feel like it.

Lesson 2: Less practice > Too much practice

After a year without much progress in Codeforces, I decided to work as hard as possible before EGOI (the first OI of the season). I only had a week between returning from holiday and leaving for Germany, so I made a plan with daily IOI VCs. I knew it would probably be too much work, but I thought I would realize if it was and simply take a break. Spoiler alert: I didn’t.

My performance got worse with each VC, and soon I lost all motivation to continue. However, I kept going until I gave up in the middle of a contest and decided to take a break. That’s when I told Dremix10, who told me I only felt I needed to practice because I’d never tried to just relax before a competition — so that’s what I did.

Taking a break certainly paid off — I performed better than ever on EGOI and got a (very unexpected) gold medal!

And it wasn’t just EGOI — My best performances weren’t in the OIs I practiced the most for. So, if you’re tired, or start feeling unmotivated, just take a break.

Lesson 3: Follow your strengths

Apart from the OIs, I also participated in JBMO — my second time there and last attempt. Because I mostly prepared for OIs, I only started seriously preparing for JBMO about a month before the competition. As I solved past problems to prepare, I realised combinatorics problems were often really close to CP problems, which I was obviously much more experienced at. So, although I knew combinatorics problems are usually 3rd or 4th (so among the 2 hardest), I decided to spend most of my time on that problem during the contest — and it worked!

I got 9/10 in the combinatorics problem, although it was the 4th (and hardest) one, and got a bronze medal. Not because I practiced a lot, but because I knew exactly what my personal advantage was and based my strategy on that.

The importance of this is even more obvious when thinking that I also didn't get many points on the 1st problem, which a lot of contestants solved — and I'm sure I wouldn't be able to get more points even if I spent more time on it, which was what I'd normally do. What is easy for you might be much different than what most of the other contestants find easy.

Lesson 4: Stress isn't the end of the world

Right before JBOI, I was seriously panicking. Gold felt too hard to achieve, but it was already such an important goal for me that I couldn't give up. My biggest worry was that the stress would affect my performance — and it definitely does have some effect on it in every competition — but being anxious about a competition won't stop you from performing really well. In fact, stress can actually help you lock in and perform better during the contest.

And here's something you might forget sometimes: everyone is anxious before a contest. It's not a disadvantage that only affects you. Experience definitely helps, but no one ever participates in a competition with no stress at all.

Sure, no stress is always the ideal scenario, but that's practically impossible.

Lesson 5: Take breaks

During COI (Cyprus OI) Round B, after solving 2/4 problems, I needed to clear my head and decided to take a break. So I went to the bathroom and tried to relax — and the change of space helped me realize that I was trying to get 100 on a problem that I probably wouldn't solve, which was (obviously) not the best strategy. So I decided to just get the points I could definitely get on that problem and focus on the other one, which turned out to be the right move.

I already knew breaks are a great way to clear your head, but I only thought you should take one when you feel you need it. But after that competition, I realised you should also take breaks throughout the contest to check and rethink your strategy. I'm aiming for at least once per hour (Although I'm still working on it), to make sure I don't spend too much time on the wrong thing.

So what is the best way to take a break? For me, it consists of three steps:

1. Leave the contest hall: Go to the bathroom for a change of space. Bonus points if you need to walk for some time to reach it.
2. Clear your head: Take a few deep breaths or even recite something from memory to focus on something different
3. Revise your strategy: This is the best time to think of what you've worked on since the last break, what mistakes you're making and what to focus on next

Lesson 6: Nothing is impossible

You’ve heard this one before countless times — but you probably don't realize it's true. In every award ceremony, I remember looking at the gold medalists and wondering what standing on the stage among the best feels like.

The truth is that most things feel impossible until you achieve them. Most of my achievements this year were things that I never expected.

So aim high, work hard, never give up and you'll achieve things you never thought were possible.

My goals and plans for next year

I'm officially a senior (Although I'm still in denial XD), so I can only participate in IOI, BOI and EGOI. My current biggest goal is to get an IOI silver, and I'll try to practice as much as possible before IOI. Of course, I also want to improve my place in the BOI and EGOI ranking.

As for Codeforces, I really hope to reach master (But first I need to stay CM for more than 4 contests in a row XD)

I also plan to post some tutorials on CP topics — More on this soon!

And finally, a few thank you’s

There's so many people I'd never have come this far without:

• Dremix10 — I never would've come this far without your constant support and guidance
• ALeonidou — You've taught me pretty much everything I know
• To all the members of the COI community who supported me since day 1 — Thank you for everything — You inspire me so much
• To all the teachers and TLs — Your support on every step of this journey has been invaluable
• To my teammates — No olympiad would be the same without you

BOI 2025 will be held in Udine, Italy, from September 25 to October 1.

Here is Cyprus' team:

• Mariza Paspalli (mariza_CY) — 2nd time at BOI, 3 attempts left
• Andreas Konstantinou (AndreasK) — 1st time at BOI, 2 attempts left
• Konstantinos Maniatis (konstantinos1708) — 1st time at BOI, 1 attempt left
• Alexis Tsaggaris (alexistsa) — 1st time at BOI, 4 attempts left

Share your country's team in the comments and I'll add it to the table.

Good luck and have fun to all participants!

JBOI 2025 will be held in Cyprus in October! I didn't find a JBOI teams blog this year, so I decided to make it.

Here are Cyprus' teams:

Team 1:

• Alexis Tsaggaris (alexistsa) — 3rd time at JBOI, 1 attempt left
• Antreas Tziapouras (Antziapo) — 2nd time at JBOI, 0 attempts left
• Andreas Charalambides (charalambides.a1810) — 1st time at JBOI, 1 attempt left
• Mariza Paspalli (mariza_CY) — 3rd time at JBOI, 0 attempts left

Team 2:

• Andreas Kesidis (Andrew_K) — 1st time at JBOI, 0 attempts left
• Petros Vourmas (WolfyS) — 1st time at JBOI, 0 attempts left
• Sofoclis Andronikou (le_monk) — 1st time at JBOI
• Christoforos Pittalis (christoforos.pittalis) — 1st time at JBOI, 1 attempt left

Share your country's team in the comments and I'll add it to the table.

Good luck and have fun to all participants!

Here is everything we know about the 2025 OIs so far (I'll update this whenever new information is announced):

Note: Information with (?) wasn't found in any official website and might be wrong.

Feel free to share information about other OIs (except national olympiads) in the comments and I'll add them.

UPD: Since the post was getting a bit messy, I grouped all the olympiads by region and whether they are a junior olympiad. I hope the new format is helpful.

International

IIOT 2025

Location: Budapest, Hungary
Dates: May 30-June 3, 2025

Websites:

• Official
• Main IIOT site (includes info on this year's edition)

IOI 2025

Location: Garcilazo Sports Complex, Sucre, Bolivia
Dates: July 27-August 3, 2025

Websites:

• Official
• Teams CF blog 1
• Teams CF blog 2

Europe

BaltOI 2025

Location: Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science of Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland
Dates: April 24-29, 2025

Websites:

• Official

WEOI 2025

Location: Volterra, Italy (Hybrid)
Dates: June 27-29 2025

Websites:

• Official
• Call for tasks

CEOI 2025

Location: Cluj-Napoca, Romania (?)
Dates: July 7-13, 2025 (?)

EGOI 2025

Location: Bonn, Germany
Dates: July 14-20, 2025

Websites:

• Official
• EGOI stats
• Teams CF blog

BalkOI 2025

Location: Udine, Italy
Dates: September 25-October 1, 2025

Websites:

• Official
• Teams CF blog

Junior

EJOI 2025

Location: Shumen, Bulgaria
Dates: August 29-September 4, 2025

Websites:

• Official
• Teams CF blog

JBOI 2025

Location: Cyprus
Dates: October 2025

Websites:

• Official
• Teams CF blog

Asia & Oceania

APIO 2025

Location: Online
Organising country: Uzbekistan
Dates: May 17-18, 2025

Websites:

• Official
• Ranking
• Tasks

Africa

NAOI 2025

(This is the first edition of NAOI!)

Location: Online
Organizing country: Algeria
Dates: April 19, 2025

Websites:

• Official
• Teams CF blog

PAIO 2025

(This is the first edition of PAIO!)

Location: Online
Organising country: Rwanda
Dates: September 12-14, 2025

Websites:

• Official

North & South America

OII 2025

Location: Online
Dates: June 14, 2025

Websites:

• Official OII site (info about individual OIIs is published here)
• Teams CF blog

PS. Good luck to everyone participating in their country's national olympiad!