University ‘not such a’ Challenge

Imperial College London’s University Challenge team has made another strong appearance on the BBC quiz show, winning their second round match against Sidney Sussex College Cambridge with a final score of 305 to 75.

Three physics students are on this year’s team; captain James Bezer (a previous FELIX Science Editor) is joined by Ben Fernando and Ashwin Braude, alongside Mathematical Statistics PhD student Onur Teymur.

James and Ben were spotted attending the viewing party in FiveSixEight

James and Ben were spotted by FELIX reporters attending the viewing party in FiveSixEight, where hundreds of students packed into the bar to cheer and boo along with the show – and of course see how many questions they were able to answer themselves.

This was the 17th episode of the overall 2015/16 series and the first of the second round of the knockout tournament to air. The Imperial team were previously featured in episode ten, where they thrashed a team from the University of Reading.

In this previous appearance Imperial earned the highest score of any team competing in the first round, 285 points. Time will tell whether any teams will manage to beat their new high score of 305 as the other seven matches of the second round have yet to air.

As in the first round, the team put in a strong performance on the many scientific questions. However they found their Achilles heel in classical music, not managing any of the bonuses and mixing up Gilbert with Sullivan.

Quick on the buzzer, Imperial also successfully answered bonuses on the decades in which certain US states joined the union, nettles in Shakespeare (seriously, question writers?) and sheep breeds.

Thanks to one member of the opposing team’s shocking hairstyle and Imperial’s 200+ point lead, social media and news sites went wild for the quiz show. The Independent and Metro websites both published articles about the episode.

Team captain James Bezer proved particularly popular with the press and fans of the show, earning the nickname ‘Bezer the Geezer’ and being declared unofficial Man of the Match by many. Bezer personally answered 8 of the team’s 16 starters, earning declarations of love and comments such as “even the voiceover guy is sick of Bezer answering everything”.

Imperial haven’t won the show since 2001; this is the first team to make it onto the televised portion of the series since 2012/13, when we were eliminated in the quarter-finals. Over 100 students took part in the internal team selection process earlier this year. Winners of the quiz show get bragging rights and a shiny trophy.

The date of Imperial’s next appearance has not yet been announced, so keep checking the FiveSixEight facebook page for details of the round three viewing party.