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Baltic Way 1992 · Problem 14

Combinatorics

There is a finite number of towns in a country. They are connected by one direction roads. It is known that, for any two towns, one of them can be reached from the other one. Prove that there is a town such that all the remaining towns can be reached from it.

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Solution

Solution:

Consider a town AA from which a maximal number of towns can be reached. Suppose there is a town BB which cannot be reached from AA. Then AA can be reached from BB and so one can reach more towns from BB than from AA, a contradiction.

Contest context

Results from Baltic Way 1992

8 teams

Mean score
3.1 / 5
Scores of 4 or 5
4 / 8
Estonia
3 / 5

Score distribution

02
10
20
32
41
53
All team scores
TeamScore
Denmark4 / 5
St. Petersburg5 / 5
Poland3 / 5
Latvia5 / 5
Iceland5 / 5
Lithuania0 / 5
Estonia3 / 5
Sweden0 / 5