Good evening everybody, and welcome back to this year's University Challenge. After a week when I've been reminiscing on my past days commenting on Deal or No Deal, and realising that we on the forum took the competitive element of the show way too seriously. I suspect, were we to go back and commentate on a lot of those old shows nowadays, we'd look on them very differently. I may say more about this here at some point. On with tonight's show, a rematch of a QF from four series ago...
Bristol University is appearing on the show for the seventh series running, and the sixteenth time overall; they've never though got beyond the QFs, which they've reached seven times. Last year's team were somewhat unfortunate to lose a low scoring first match to Birmingham. This year's team were:
Dom Owens, from Petersfield in Hampshire, studying Statistics
Robert Pye, from Wolverhampton, studying Chemistry
Captain: Zizzy Lugg-Williams, from Cardiff, studying French
Benjamin Salmon, from Finchley in London, studying Politics and International Relations
Corpus Christi College Oxford has only appeared four times before, but all have been notable: firstly they won the show in 2004-05, then lost heavily in the second round in 2006-07, won again in 2008-09 under the stewardship of Gail Trimble only to later be stripped of the title after that incident that we do not talk about, and finally they were quarter-finalists again in 2016-17. This year's quartet were:
Libby Cherry, from Stroud, studying English
Michael Zaayman, from Pretoria, South Africa, studying Chemistry
Captain: Tyron Surmon, from Tonbridge in Kent, studying History and Politics
Shaun Webb, from Ealing in London, studying Ancient and Modern History
So off we went once again, and Mr Owens was unfortunate on the first starter, forgetting his answer after buzzing and losing five; Mr Webb took the pickup in what would be a productive night for him, and the Oxonians had one of the resulting bonuses. Mr Webb went on to take the next two starters as well, and half of the bonuses were converted, quickly taking them up to 50. Bristol opened their scoring properly with the first picture round, on ONS travel to work areas, which cut the gap to 50-15.
Mr Webb resumed his buzzing brilliance on the next starter, and, thankfully, the resulting bonus set on fictional wolves had no mention of that infamously long and graphic Family Guy cutaway. Bristol did pull a starter and bonus back, but there was little stopping Mr Webb, another starter and a full bonus set putting them within one starter of 100. But Bristol took the music round, on female solo nominees for the Best Rap Album Grammy, which reduced their arrears to 90-50.
That man Webb gave Corpus Christi the starter they needed to reach 100; just one bonus followed, before Mr Zaayman identified the quagga, giving us this week's Brain of Britain crossover question (today's episode narrowly won by OC alumnus Brett Bostock). Another starter to Mr Webb and one bonus put them just one close to a 100 point lead. But Bristol fought back now with two starters in a row, including the second picture round, on paintings of violinists, after which they trailed 145-95.
A third starter in a row went to the Avonsiders, as did two bonuses, and when Mr Salmon gave them a fourth in a row, and another two bonuses, they were suddenly just ten behind! But they got no further, as Ms Cherry steadied Corpus Christi's ship with 'rhinestone'; two bonuses followed, and when Mr Webb had the next, that was game over. At the gong, Corpus Christi won 175-135.
Another good close contest between two reasonably good teams, well played both. Well done to Corpus Christi on a worthy win, and well done Bristol as well on a fair performance; their score that probably won't get them into the play-offs, especially with another team already on it, but we'll see.
The stats: Mr Webb was by far and away the best buzzer of the night with EIGHT starters, while Mr Salmon was best for Bristol with four. On the bonuses, Bristol managed 14 out of 21 (with one penalty) and Corpus Christi 17 out of 28 (with two penalties, including a 'just an interruption').
Next week's match: Darwin College Cambridge vs St Andrews
No comments:
Post a Comment