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Geometry Difficulty 6.5 National Olympiad Prove it Brazil

Given a triangle ABC, its A-excircle is the point where the external bisectors of angles B\angle B and C\angle C meet. Let IAI_A, IBI_B and ICI_C be the A, B, C-excenters of scalene triangle ABC, respectively, and X, Y and Z be the midpoints of IBICI_B I_C, ICIAI_C I_A and IAIBI_A I_B, respectively. The incircle of triangle ABC touches sides BC, CA and AB at D, E and F, respectively. Prove that lines DX, EY and FZ meet at a single point on line IO that connects the incenter I and the circumcenter O of triangle ABC.

Solution

We start with the following useful lemma:
Lemma. Let ABCABC be a triangle and IAI_A, IBI_B and ICI_C be its excenters. Then the midpoints of the sides of the triangle IAIBICI_A I_B I_C lie on the circumcircle of ABCABC.
Proof. First notice that AIAAI_A and IBICI_B I_C are the internal and external bisectors of BAC\angle BAC, respectively, so AIAAI_A is the altitude relative to IBICI_B I_C in triangle IAIBICI_A I_B I_C. So the circle that goes through the feet of the altitudes AA, BB and CC is the nine point circle of IAIBICI_A I_B I_C, and thus the midpoints of the sides of that triangle lie on it.

Figure 1

Since AE=AFAE = AF and IE=IFIE = IF, AIAI is the perpendicular bisector of EFEF, so AIEFAI \perp EF. We also have AIIBICAI \perp I_B I_C. So EFIBICEF \parallel I_B I_C. Since YZIBICYZ \parallel I_B I_C as well, we conclude that EFYZEF \parallel YZ. Analogously, DEXYDE \parallel XY and DFXZDF \parallel XZ, so triangles DEFDEF and XYZXYZ are homothetic. Let ϕ\phi be the homothety that maps XYZXYZ to DEFDEF. Since XX, YY, and ZZ lie on the circumcircle of ABCABC (by the lemma) and DD, EE and FF lie on the incircle of ABCABC, ϕ\phi maps the circumcircle to the incircle, and thus OO to II. Hence DXDX, EYEY, FZFZ and OIOI pass through the center of the homothety ϕ\phi and we are done.

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