Possible Fields Medal Winners Revealed Before Ceremony as Polymarket Odds Hit 99%

^{Mathematicians John Pardon (Left) and Hong Wang (Right)}

Around ten days before the Fields Medal ceremony, the names of possible winners became accessible on the official website of the International Congress of Mathematicians, ICM 2026. The leak immediately affected trading on the prediction market platform Polymarket, Wenxuecity reported.

Hidden entries for lectures marked as Fields Medal Lecture had been added to the schedule in advance. They were not shown on the regular page: the website hid the entries in the interface, but did not remove them from the data loaded by the browser.

A regular visitor would not have seen the records. However, a person with basic technical knowledge could open the loaded data and find the hidden entries. No hacking or password guessing was required.

Hidden Laureate Entries in the ICM 2026 Schedule Data

The list included mathematicians Hong Wang, Yu Deng, John Pardon and Jacob Tsimerman. The records were later removed, but copies had already spread online.

After the leak, the probability of each of the four mathematicians winning the award on Polymarket rose to 98–99%. According to screenshots of the market, the chances of other candidates were only a few percent.

Polymarket Odds for Possible Fields Medal Winners After the Leak

The winners are officially due to be announced on 23 July at the opening of ICM 2026 in Philadelphia.

The Fields Medal is one of the most prestigious awards in mathematics. It is presented every four years for outstanding achievements. The award is usually given to between two and four mathematicians.