The ENS de Lyon’s team has just achieved a Grand Slam. After having dominated the French final of the International Physicists’ Tournament in January, the team’s six students and their coaches landed the top spot in the international final.

Congratulations to the winners: Andréane Bourges, Arsène Chemin, Clément Gouiller, Axel Guittonneau, Corneliu Malciu, Jérémy Sautel; and their coaches: Aude Caussarieu, Nicolas Plihon, Nicolas Taberlet, of the Physics department.

The final of the IPT was held from April 17 to 22 at the ESCPI Paris Tech school, under the sponsorship of the French Physical Society.

How it works:
Three teams of six students and their coaches (lecturers or researchers) meet for 45-minute “battles” around physics problems they’ve worked on throughout the year. One team is “reporter”: it defends its analysis of the problem that the rival team is challenging it on. This “opponent” team questions the findings, highlighting both their strengths and weaknesses. This fuels a discussion – sometimes heated – between both teams. The third team, called “reviewer,” summarizes the discussion and highlights the most interesting points. Then comes a jury of senior scientists who rate the performance of each team before they switch roles.

A first phase in five rounds opposed 15 international teams, from Germany, Australia, China, Colombia, Spain, Greece, Iran, Poland, the United Kingdom, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and Ukraine. Two teams represented France, from the ENS in Paris and the ENS de Lyon.

The grand final opposed Poland (38.29 points), Russia (30.86 points) and France, represented by the ENS de Lyon (47.14 points).

To catch-up on the final: