Problem

Source: China MO 2023 P6

Tags: combinatorics, directed graph, graph cycles



There are $n(n\ge 8)$ airports, some of which have one-way direct routes between them. For any two airports $a$ and $b$, there is at most one one-way direct route from $a$ to $b$ (there may be both one-way direct routes from $a$ to $b$ and from $b$ to $a$). For any set $A$ composed of airports $(1\le | A| \le n-1)$, there are at least $4\cdot \min \{|A|,n-|A| \}$ one-way direct routes from the airport in $A$ to the airport not in $A$. Prove that: For any airport $x$, we can start from $x$ and return to the airport by no more than $\sqrt{2n}$ one-way direct routes.