Zhejiang University's Wheatfield with Crows team won the championship at the CCPC China Collegiate Programming Contest in Xiamen on October 20, 2019. Fudan University and Tsinghua University teams finished in second and third place.
(Zhejiang University Wheatfield with Crows wins the championship)
The contest was held at Xiamen University of Technology from October 19th to 20th, 2019. A total of 238 teams participated, which basically assembled all the strong contenders in domestic algorithm competitions, including Tsinghua University, Peking University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Fudan University, Nanjing University, Electronic Science and Technology University, etc. Zhejiang University's Wheatfield with Crows team consisted of three sophomores, Deng Haoran, Lin Siyi and Chen Yuwen. Their instructor was Prof. Wang Can from the School of Computer Science and Technology.
(From the left to right: Chen Yuwen, Lin Siyi, Deng Haoran, assistant coach Zhou Jiayu)
Sun Yat-sen University created the problem set for this year’s contest, which was highly difficult. The competition was in the heat since the very beginning, with the Fudan University team establishing an early lead. When Fudan University passed 6 questions, the rest of the field only passed 4. The Nanjing University team stayed resilient and later established a two-question lead as well. The Zhejiang University team started off slow, but they weren’t discouraged. In the final hour of the contest, the leaderboard was temporarily locked in order to sustain title suspense. At this time, the top two ranking teams were Fudan University and Peking University, both with 7 passes. 15 other teams followed closely behind them with 6 passes, including Wheatfield with Crows. The Fudan University team submitted question B a total of 18 times and looked like they were determined to win. Meanwhile, Peking University relentlessly attacked question C. For these two teams, passing an 8th question meant they would almost certainly take home the title. It was difficult for the rest of the teams to catch up due to time penalty, but Wheatfield with Crows kept grinding. They attempted to solve question B and question K, looking to find flaws in hundreds of lines of code. Half an hour later, precisely 4 hours 33 minutes and 4 seconds into the contest, Wheatfield with Crows finally passed question B and tied the score with the top two teams. They became only team to solve question B in the entire contest.
After the game, the referees were surprised about question B because it was the most difficult question in the entire problem set. They were puzzled by the code submitted by Wheatfield with Crows, unable to figure out how it passed all the test cases. After some discussion, they realized Wheatfield with Crows’ solution was actually more sophisticated than the standard solution, and it was brilliant. Even though there were less than 30 minutes remaining when Wheatfield with Crows passed question B, the team did not give up and attempted to solve question K. In the final minutes of the contest, Fudan University and Peking University looked troubled, apparently stuck on the last problem. Suddenly, there was a cheer from Wheatfield with Crows --- they have passed question K with just 5 minutes left on the clock. With this and question B that they passed earlier, Wheatfield with Crows clutched the win and became the champion of CCPC Xiamen.
It is worth mentioning that this is Zhejiang University’s first win in the CCPC. With this victory, our school has completed the grand slam of the International Collegiate Programming Contest (ICPC) and the China Collegiate Programming Contest (CCPC).
Zhejiang University's competitive programming teams have an excellent tradition, a glorious history, and numerous gold medals at home and abroad. Our school won the championship in the 35th ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest World Finals held in Orlando back in 2011, becoming one of two universities from mainland China to have won the world championship. This year, our school’s competitive programming team has sustained its strong momentum. We hope that the players will stay humble, continue to hone their skills and strive for more honors.
