BEIJING, July 22 -- A team of U.S. teenagers won the International Mathematical Olympiad, one of the world's biggest math competitions, for the first time since 1994, according to media reports on Wednesday.

The U.S. team won the first place with a total score of 185, while Chinese team got the second place with 181. The third-place prize went to South Korea team who got 161 points. 74 teams got zero point.

The International Mathematical Olympiad is an annual competition in which top high school students from over a hundred countries attempt to solve extremely difficult math problems.

The first IMO was held in 1959 in Romania, with 7 countries participating. This year, 577 competitors from 104 countries and regions around the world participate in IMO held in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The problems at IMO test competitors' abilities to approach situations creatively, rather than memorized formulas. The problems are generally fairly simply laid out, but require a lot of analysis to understand.

Head coach of the U.S. Team, Professor Po-Shen Loh of Carnegie Mellon University said, the problems are designed to help "bridge the gap between the kinds of problems most kids see on their high school math homework and real math research."