The early history of the NMC is documented in a series of reports in the journal Normat. According to Åke Samuelsson, the NMC was founded at a meeting of the leaders of the Nordic teams at the 27th IMO in Warsaw 1986. As Denmark did not participate in the IMO before 1991, no team leader from Denmark was there. The founding countries were Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. The first NMC took place on 30 March 1987 hosted by Sweden with 47 contestants from the four participating countries. It is stressed in the report that the organisation was minimal. The 2nd, 3rd and 4th NMCs took place in 1988-90 hosted by Norway, Iceland and Finland, respectively. This established the hosting order for the future.