Problem

Source: CGMO 2020 Day1 P3

Tags: combinatorics



There are $3$ classes with $n$ students in each class, and the heights of all $3n$ students are pairwise distinct. Partition the students into groups of $3$ such that in each group, there is one student from each class. In each group, call the tallest student the tall guy. Suppose that for any partition of the students, there are at least 10 tall guys in each class, prove that the minimum value of $n$ is $40$.