“Incredible achievement”: sixth-former wins place on UK team competing in International Physics Olympiad

Year 13’s Harik Sodhi will be heading to Paris this summer to compete with the world’s top young physicists as part of the British national team in the International Physics Olympiad.

Harik progressed through three rounds of the UK’s top schools Physics competition and has now been chosen for the five-person UK team after performing well among some 14 high-fliers at a selection camp (pictured).

Head of Physics Jonathan Brooke said: “This is an incredible achievement. Harik has mastered an impressive breadth of Physics and worked assiduously, fine-tuning his impressive problem-solving skills.

“Olympiad papers are extremely challenging; pupils need to have very strong mathematical skills and need to be able to work quickly and accurately. Making headway through the problems requires insight, composure and resilience.”

QE gave Year 13 boys a chance to sit the Physics Challenge paper in September 2024. The high achievers then had the opportunity to sit the British Physics Olympiad (BPhO) Round 1 paper in November.

That QE contingent were among some 3,500 pupils from schools across the UK to sit the Round 1 paper. From these, around 100 were then invited by the BPhO organisers to sit the Round 2 paper in February 2025.

Harik’s invitation to the UK BPhO training and selection camp in Oxford (pictured) followed on the basis of his performance in Round 1 and 2.

Before going to Paris in July, he will first attend a final training camp with his UK team mates at Trinity College, Cambridge.

The BPhO was founded in 1979 and it is believed that QE first started giving boys the opportunity to take part in the competition in around 2005.

“In the 20 years or so that QE boys have been taking part in the competition, only a small handful of QE boys have made it to the national team,” said Mr Brooke.

In 2013, Mahdi Elango was a bronze medal-winner at the International Physics Olympiad in Copenhagen. The following year, Aniruddh Raghu took bronze at the IPhO in Astana, Kazakhstan. And in 2015, Robert Swan also won bronze, at the IPhO in Mumbai, India.

“I think that means that if Harik can get a silver or gold, he will have bragging rights as the greatest Physics Olympian the School has ever produced!” said Mr Brooke.