Stefanija Dimovska is a second-year student at the "Josip Broz Tito" grammar school in Bitola. She returned from the International Earth Science Olympiad IESO 2026 in Turin with two medals - a bronze and a gold.

She won the bronze with an international team, in a discipline concerning the melting of glaciers. The gold - with a different international team, for field geological research.

Before that, she was also national champion in geography.

What "international team" actually means

The IESO format matters and deserves explaining, because around here the coverage usually amounts to the number of medals. At this olympiad, students do not compete solely for their own country - they are distributed into mixed international teams and solve tasks together with peers from other states.

Which means Stefanija did not win on knowledge alone. She won a joint field research assignment, with people she was meeting for the first time, in a place where there is no textbook to copy from.

A meeting in an office and a meeting in her own city

The Macedonian team, made up of students and mentors, was received at the office of President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova. Bitola mayor Toni Konjanovski received Stefanija in Bitola and congratulated her on the results.

That is good and it should happen. But it is worth looking at what stands behind a result like this: mentors working outside their hours, a school that finds room for preparation, and a family that supports it. The medal is visible; those three things are not.

The question that is left over every time

Macedonia regularly brings home medals from international school olympiads - in mathematics, physics, informatics, and now in Earth sciences. Such news is always greeted warmly and always lasts exactly one day.

Stefanija is in her second year of grammar school. Which means that in two years she will be deciding where to study. Whether she will have a reason to stay, and whether the country will offer her anything more than a reception in an office - that is what gets measured later, once the news has been forgotten.

Until then: two medals from Turin. Earned.