Well, I’ve just watched the final of Christmas University Challenge. I have to admit that after watching the two semi finals on the iplayer this morning I thought that Warwick would blow Trinity out of the water. Which just goes to show how much I know. Mind you, it did illustrate an interesting point for me. I made Warwick the hot favourites because in their first round and second round matches Daisy Christodoulou looked comfortably the fastest buzzer, and the best quizzer in the whole competition. It’s not surprising when you consider that she won the proper series in 2007. The only thing about having one obvious ‘star’ on your team is it does leave a huge question mark over exactly what happens when your star has an off night. I only base this on her performances in the first two matches, but based on that I would say that Daisy Christodoulou was some way below par tonight, and unfortunately for Warwick the rest of the team just couldn’t take up the slack between them.
This is to take nothing away from Trinity, who put on an admirable display tonight. If we’re talking about stars, then Trinity had their own University Challenge series winner with Robin Bhattacharya, who has been a big hitter for them consistently, and also with Daisy Goodwin, who had comfortably her best performance tonight, and was rightly applauded by skipper John Lloyd at the end of the show.
For the record, the final score was Trinity – 235 - Warwick - 60
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4 comments:
I've enjoyed this mini-series. A pleasant alternative to the regular contest.
As for the final, I too am surprised that Trinity trounced Warwick, rather than the other way round, but these things happen.
Looking forward to regular service resuming on Monday, with the second quarter-final between Balliol and Pembroke.
It was nice to see a match that didn't go exactly as everyone would have thought. The others you could predict almost to the point once you'd seen the line up.
The Bhattacharyya/Goodwin combination was very effective in the final but it is a shame that Christodoulou didn't get going and give them a fight. It must be good for the kids at, was it Pimlico Academy and Loughborough Grammar School, to see their teachers do so well. It must have been like that at your school too I guess.
Am I right in thinking John Lloyd didn't get a starter in the entire series? He did a behind the scenes of QI recently in which he appeared to hint that he was omniscient. Maybe the format isn't right for him.
I enjoyed this a lot too and as I said over at The Quiz Addict, I was expecting Warwick Christodoulou to be heard more often but never the less it wasnt. What is up with Goodwin? She seemed in pain
Having just caught up with the latter stages on BBC iPlayer I'm still in shock at the performance of my alma mater, Edinburgh, against Warwick in the semi. I'm not sure who cobbled that particular quartet together, but they would have been hard pushed to find a worse team at any pub quiz in town. Abject.
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