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Geometry Difficulty 7.8 National olympiad, round 2 Prove it Netherlands

Let ABC\triangle ABC be a triangle with orthocentre HH and circumcircle Γ\Gamma. Let DD be the reflection of AA across the point BB, and let EE be the reflection of AA across the point CC. Let MM be the midpoint of segment DEDE.
Prove that the tangent to Γ\Gamma at AA is perpendicular to HMHM.

Solution

Let AA' be the reflection of HH across the midpoint of BCBC and AA'' the reflection of HH across BCBC. Then by angle chasing, we find that BHC=ABC+BCA=180CAB\angle BHC = \angle ABC + \angle BCA = 180^\circ - \angle CAB. This angle is also equal to BAC\angle BA'C and BAC\angle BA''C. Therefore, both AA' and AA'' lie on the circle. Moreover, AAA'A'' is parallel to BCBC, which in turn is perpendicular to AAAA''. Hence, AAA=90\angle A'A''A = 90^\circ and AAA'A is a diameter of the circle. Therefore AAA'A is perpendicular to the tangent to Γ\Gamma at AA. Since AA is the reflection of MM across the midpoint of BCBC, we note that AAA'A is parallel to HMHM (because these line segments are transformed to each other under the reflection). Therefore HMHM is also perpendicular to the tangent to Γ\Gamma at AA. \square

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