Game, set, match Imperial College

On Monday, Imperial won the first of their quarter-final matches against Edinburgh University in the latest episode of University Challenge. At this stage in the competition, Imperial needs one more win against Emmanuel College Cambridge to secure a place in the semi-finals.

The University Challenge team, led by MSci Theoretical Physicist Gilead Amit, previously beat Southampton University and St. Hugh's College Oxford with scores of 175-135 and 280-80. The team sustained the winning track to triumph 240-110 over Edinburgh University.

Chemist Ciaran Healy picked up half of their fourteen correctly answered starter questions with Amit six, and physicist Simon Good one.

In the first picture round, the contestants were asked to identify the winning team, the host country and the year which the FIFA World Cup took place from a diagram of the knockout stages of the tournament. Healy successfully identified the starter diagram together with three bonus diagrams leading to a 75-0 lead in the first 7 minutes of the competition.

Simon Good correctly identified Puccini as the composer of a piece of classical music during the first music round. Although the team failed to give any correct answers for this bonus round regarding 19th century Italian operas, Imperial was 105 points ahead of Edinburgh University after the eighth starter question.

Edinburgh University's Hugh Brechin answered all the questions to the bonus of ‘identifying the Nobel Prize winners in Chemistry from the committee's official citation', briefly closing the gap. Imperial won 240-110 as the gong sounded. Imperial's team of Gilead Amit, Simon Good, Ciaran Healy and Ben Nicholson and Ed Brightman will be in the second round of the quarter-finals in early February.