After being invited to the Australian Summer School (think of a national training camp for the olympiad competitions), I decided to take this opporunity to upskill myself. Thanks to the support of all the wonderful staff at Australian Science Innovations (ASI), I found myself in Mongolia during May representing Australia on the world stage.
Despite APhO's notorious reputation for being even more difficult than IPhO, my effort was rewarded with a silver medal that I am truly proud of (for reference Australia typically only gets bronze medals or honourable mentions in APhO)! That being said, APhO2023 is quite frankly the most difficult exam I've ever done (the global median score was 10/50) and revealed weaknesses that I could improve upon between APhO and IPhO (especially rotational mechanics!!!).