The Tale of the Tape
|
Name |
Specialist Score |
Specialist Passes |
GK Score |
GK Passes |
Total Score |
Total Passes |
Tie break |
|
Sharon Chambers |
8 |
0 |
16 |
0 |
24 |
0 |
- |
|
Sadie de Souza |
13 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
23 |
0 |
3 |
|
Elliot Hooson |
9 |
0 |
10 |
1 |
19 |
1 |
- |
|
Thomas Nelson |
10 |
0 |
16 |
0 |
26 |
0 |
|
Well, well, well. For the first time in this set of semis one of the heat winners was unable to take part. This meant that the highest scoring runner up was brought in to take his place. Scott Torrance was the unfortunate contender forced by circumstances to miss out. You could make a case that the other three contenders were unfortunate too, since taking his place was Thomas Nelson. Only two heat winners scored higher than Thomas’ 26 and no passes in the heats, unfortunately one of them was in the same heat as his.
Sharon Chambers kicked off the
evening with her round on Peter Cushing. Sharon scored 6 points, considerably
better than the four that I managed. But I was fairly certain that this was
going to leave her in difficulties. You have to reckon on at least one of the
other contenders getting close to a maximum in specialist which would leave
Sharon too far behind.
Elliot Hooson’s subject, the
History of Percussion Instruments, really was the wild card specialist of the
night for me. What I mean by that is that I had no reason to think it would be
a round that would particularly suit me and yet it was the kind of round where
good general knowledge might pick you up a couple of points. Slightly more as
it happened. I took 3 for an aggregate of 7 with what looked to be two decent
rounds to go. Elliot scored 10 with a quality round which looked as if it would
leave him in contention as we turned for home.
Sadie de Souza was answering
on what I thought would be my banker subject, the Sarah Jane Adventures. Well,
actually it only provided me with my joint worst score of the night. I took
another three, although if I could have counted answers which were on the tip
of my tongue I could have doubled that. Still, that took the aggregate to
double figures with only one round still to go. Sadie produced a very fine round
to take the lead with 11.
Finally then came Thomas. He
was answering on Sir Bobby Robson. My thought was that I’d know enough to get a
couple on this. As indeed I did, I fact, a couple of couples. That four took me
to an aggregate of 14, my second best of the semis. I can’t remember the last
time that I scored at least 3 on all four specialist subjects. Last time out
Thomas trailed the leader by two points at this same stage. Last night he was
ahead by one after a fine 12 points.
So to the General Knowledge.
Sharon Chambers had set one of the highest GK scores in the heats with 16.
Starting out 6 points off the lead last night even if she could repeat this a
win looked unlikely. It would make things interesting, though. Well, it didn’t
quite work out that way, although Sharon did score a good 10.
I would not have enjoyed
Elliot’s GK questions had I been sitting in the chair to face them. It’s
already happened once during these semifinals that a contender has received a
set of questions I have found noticeably less to my liking than others, and
this was a second time. Judging by he pain on his face at times Elliot must
have felt so too. He tried guessing. He tried passing – in the end he passed
five. But he did at least manage the 7 that he needed to go into the lead.
Sadie had scored 10 in her GK
round in the heat. With Thomas yet to come she needed all of that and more if
possible. Well, she gave it a lash and she produced answers to all of her
questions. 8 of them were correct, which gave her 19. Would it be enough? In
all honesty I felt that this didn’t look likely. But then strange things can
sometimes happen in semifinals.
Nothing strange happened in
this one, though. Thomas needed 8 to win, and he reeled off an excellent 14. He never looked in any difficulty, and produced a great case for reinstating
repechage slots in the semi-finals. I’m not going to ruin anyone’s chances by making
predictions at this stage of the proceedings, but Thomas now has at least a 1
in 6 chance of walking away with the whole thing. Well done sir, and best of
luck.
The Details
|
Sharon
Chambers |
Peter
Cushing |
6 |
0 |
10 |
0 |
16 |
0 |
|
Elliot
Hooson |
The
History of Percussion Instruments |
10 |
0 |
7 |
5 |
17 |
5 |
|
Sadie
de Souza |
The
Sarah Jane Adventures |
11 |
0 |
8 |
0 |
19 |
0 |
|
Thomas
Nelson |
Sir
Bobby Robson |
12 |
0 |
14 |
0 |
26 |
0 |
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