The Associated Press

CLEVELAND - Elena Udovina and Eric Mecklenburg proudly call themselves nerds who love physics. The two northeast Ohio teens can soon also call themselves Olympians - sort of.

They are heading to South Korea this month as part of a five-member United States team competing against physics stars from 70 nations in the International Physics Olympiad. And their coach is also from northeast Ohio.

Elena and Eric beat out more than 1,000 students from across the country for a spot on the team.

They will be training in California this week with teammates and U.S. coach, Robert Shurtz, a teacher at Gates Mills Hawken, before traveling to South Korea for nine days of tests and seminars.

"I'm pretty nervous," said Eric, who will be a senior at Hawken. "Whatever happens, you learn a lot - that's the great part."

The two have been studying physics problems from past international games dating to the 1967 inaugural event. The topics are "way beyond" advanced high school studies, Shurtz said.

Elena, 18, of Solon, just graduated from Hathaway Brown in Shaker Heights and plans to major in math at Harvard. She taught herself physics in a few weeks and then had a perfect score on the physics section of the SAT test. Later, she took an advanced physics class and was allowed to skip the first course.

"She has the ability to see connections others miss, and an ability to see the whole and all the various components," her teacher Mary Kay Winzenburger said.

Elena came to the United States from St. Petersburg, Russia, at the age of 12.

This year, she took two college-level math courses at Case Western Reserve University and for two summers, she was chosen for the prestigious Ross Program at Ohio State University.

Eric, 17, from Russell Township, sees beauty in how nature can be translated into mathematical equations.

"It's really cool to look around and understand everything you see and how it works," he said.

Shurtz was picked to coach the U.S. team four years ago, after sending several of his students to the U.S. finals or to the international competition.