American athletes may be used to topping the medal count at the Olympic Games, but it took no fewer than 21 years for the United States to finally triumph again at the International Math Olympiad.

In a "grueling" 12-day competition in Chiang Mai, Thailand, a six-person team of top American math students managed to defeat challengers from more than 100 countries by solving three math problems, Time magazine reported.

"If you can even solve one question, you're a bit of a genius," Carnegie Mellon University professor and U.S. head coach Po-Shen Loh told NPR. For the United States, the victory marked the fifth championship overall; but the country had not won since 1994, Ars Technica noted.

"The questions that we do here are not anything like school questions. It's not like going into college math. It's like thinking harder," Loh told the Washington Post.

"When you look at the Olympics, everyone can understand what they are doing. It's pretty basic stuff: Run as fast as you can," the coach added. "In some sense, the math Olympiad is similar because the math you are using -- you don't have to have a college degree to understand. However, you do have to be creative."

The American team scored 185 points, thus beating runner-up China, which came in at 181. Nevertheless, the People's Republic still holds a number of International Math Olympiad records, which include having won the tournament no fewer than 19 times and come out on top in four out of the last five competitions.

The U.S. success, though, may help calm fears "over perceived decreases in the quality of American math education," Time judged. What should be a cause of concern, however, is the gender gap in mathematics, Loh told NPR.

"That is actually something that one hopes will change," the coach said as he mentioned the two women on the U.S. team. "One might say, 'Only 2 out of 12, that's terrible.' But I should say in many years, it was, unfortunately, zero."