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IMO 2015 Team Selection Tests

Vietnam 2015 geometry

Problem

Given a circle with a fixed chord ( is not a diameter of the circle). Let move on the bigger arc such that is an acute triangle and . Let and respectively be the midpoint of and the orthocenter of the triangle . The ray intersects the circle again at , the line intersects the line at and the line intersects the circle again at . From , we draw a perpendicular line to , intersecting at .

a) Prove that point belongs to a fixed circle when moves along the bigger arc .

b) The circle goes through and touching at intersects , at , , respectively. Let be the midpoint of . Prove that the line always goes through a fixed point.
Solution
a) We rewrite the first part of the problem as following. Let the acute triangle inscribed in the circle . is the altitude and is orthocenter of the triangle . is the midpoint of . The circle with the diameter cuts again at . cuts again at . The straight line passing through and perpendicular with cuts at . Then, four points , , , belong to the same circle.

Since lies on the circle with the diameter , cuts again at and then is the diameter of . From that, the quadrilateral is the parallelogram, and goes through . Let be the intersection of and . Since the quadrilaterals and are inscribed, we have This implies that , or the quadrilateral is an isosceles trapezoid. We have is the midpoint of so . It is easy to see that the triangle is a right angle at . We decide that is the midpoint of or is the reflection of through . Note that the reflection of through belongs to then , , , all belong to reflection circle of through . The first part of the problem follows.

b) For solution of the second part, we rewrite the statement as following. Let the triangle be inscribed in the circle , and be the orthocenter of . The circle with diameter cuts again at . A circle touches at cuts and again at and , respectively. Then, bisects the segment .

Let be the intersection of and then is the diameter of . The quadrilateral is the parallelogram so the line goes through the midpoint of . Let be the intersection of and the circumcircle of the triangle . The line cuts at . It is easy to see that and Therefore, the triangles and are similar. Analogously, the triangles and are similar. Because is the midpoint of , we have is the midpoint of . The second part of the problem follows.

Techniques

Triangle centers: centroid, incenter, circumcenter, orthocenter, Euler line, nine-point circleCyclic quadrilateralsTangentsAngle chasing