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IMO Team Selection Test 2

Netherlands geometry

Problem

Let be a triangle with orthocentre and circumcircle . Let be the reflection of across the point , and let be the reflection of across the point . Let be the midpoint of segment . Prove that the tangent to at is perpendicular to .
Solution
Let be the reflection of across the midpoint of and the reflection of across . Then by angle chasing, we find that . This angle is also equal to and . Therefore, both and lie on the circle. Moreover, is parallel to , which in turn is perpendicular to . Hence, and is a diameter of the circle. Therefore is perpendicular to the tangent to at . Since is the reflection of across the midpoint of , we note that is parallel to (because these line segments are transformed to each other under the reflection). Therefore is also perpendicular to the tangent to at .

Techniques

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