How to encourage participation in the national olympiad in informatics? Currently, relatively few participate in the national olympiad in informatics (high school) of my country. This is partially because the first round takes a bit of time (up to 40 hours if one wants to reach a perfect score, but 10 hours should be sufficient for a passing score). I'd like to encourage participation in the national olympiad in informatics, because I think that several students are good enough to do well in the olympiad and I think they would like it.

How can I encourage participation?
Personally, assembling a team (or club etc.) of those students and teach them the relevant material would encourage most (if not all) of them to participate.

Also, finding a guide\mentor who can teach them would give the sense of, for lack of a better word, prestige. 

Here, where I live, there's a national competition and it's very popular, due to the use of the aforementioned method.