Cambridge finally get one over their rivals.
Saturday saw Cambridge lose to Oxford in both the men's and women's University Boat Races and even in the annual Goat Race.
But, last night on BBC Two, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge beat Magdalen College, Oxford in the Grand Final of University Challenge - probably the world's toughest quiz show - to be crowned the new series champions.
And there's a new king of University Challenge. Practically single-handedly, Ted Loveday, a Cambridge law student, inspired Gonville & Caius College to a 255-105 victory.
Loveday, formerly of Latymer Upper School in west London, answered a staggering 12 starters for 10 correctly, enough to open up a lead over Magdalen from early on.
Among them was a lightning-quick answer to Jeremy Paxman's question, "What is the ancient Greek term for an expression that's found only once in literature?"
"Hapax legomenon," said floppy-haired Loveday instantly, with a heart-warming, nervous smile at his teammates: historian Michael Taylor, clinical medic and team captain Anthony Martinelli, and Jeremy Warner, who studies natural sciences.
Loveday's performance, and the cable-knit sweater he wore, gained plenty of interest on social media.
To make the victory even sweeter, it stopped Magdalen - four times previous winners in University Challenge - from becoming the most successful team of all time. Only Magdalen and Manchester University have won it four times before in the 53-year history of the competition.
28 teams were in the First Round of this season's University Challenge tournament, whose format is similar to a knockout football tournament.
University Challenge: the Grand Final, review: new king of the show was 'on fire'
Magdalen College, Oxford and Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge battled it out in the Grand Final of the quiz show
By Harry Mount
13 Apr 2015
The Telegraph
222 Comments
There's a new king of University Challenge. Practically single-handedly, Ted Loveday, a Cambridge law student, inspired Gonville & Caius College to a 255-105 victory over Magdalen College, Oxford, in tonight's final.
The teams were level pegging at one stage in the final (BBC)
Loveday, formerly of Latymer Upper School in west London, answered a staggering 12 starters for 10 correctly, enough to open up a lead over Magdalen from early on.
Among them was a lightning-quick answer to Jeremy Paxman's question, "What is the ancient Greek term for an expression that's found only once in literature?"
"Hapax legomenon," said floppy-haired Loveday instantly, with a heart-warming, nervous smile at his teammates: historian Michael Taylor, clinical medic and team captain Anthony Martinelli, and Jeremy Warner, who studies natural sciences.
Students at Oxford's Magdalen College watching the University Challenge final on the big screen (Andrew Fox/The Telegraph)
Loveday inspired Gonville & Caius College to a 255-105 victory over Magdalen College, Oxford, in last night's final and is now a hit on social media
Loveday's performance, and the cable-knit sweater he wore, gained plenty of interest on social media.
To make the victory even sweeter, it stopped Magdalen - four times previous winners in University Challenge - from becoming the most successful team of all time. Only Magdalen and Manchester University have won it four times before in the 53-year history of the competition.
After Oxford's clean sweep in the Boat Race – in the men’s, women’s and reserve crew races - the Light Blue victory over the Dark Blues is a welcome boost for Cambridge. As if all that weren't enough, tonight's show was a replay of the 2004 final, when Gonville & Caius made its only previous final appearance, losing to Magdalen.
Since Bamber Gascoigne first presented University Challenge in 1962 - Jeremy Paxman took over in 1994 - Cambridge colleges have now won nine times; Oxford have won 15 times.
I was watching the final in Magdalen's auditorium - based on an ancient Greek theatre - in the hope that they would become the greatest champions of all time. But it was not to be.
Tensions were high in the Magdelen auditorium with students hoping their team would win University Challenge for a record fifth time, but it was not to be (Andrew Fox/ The Telegraph)
"Ted Loveday put in the best performance since Gail Trimble," said Magdalen's captain, Hugh Binnie, 23, referring to the Corpus Christi undergraduate in the 2009 final, who scored 125 points in the last four minutes, "His own captain said it could have been seven against Ted on his own, and he would have won it. There were a couple of questions we could have got - but Ted buzzed in and answered them."
"Ted's always good," said Magdalen's Cameron Quinn, 27, from Los Angeles, who is doing a Masters in the French Enlightenment, “But I've never seen someone that on fire before."
I know from bitter experience how extremely hard it is to win all the University Challenge rounds and go all the way. In 2011, I was on Magdalen's semi-final team for Christmas University Challenge, when we lost to Trinity College, Cambridge, starring BBC broadcaster, Edward Stourton, and the Blackadder producer, John Lloyd. Those starters for 10 are crucial but agonisingly elusive. Just as the brain cogs start to crunch into gear, some Ted Loveday-like genius pounces. To get in that early on 12 of them, and get them all right, is beyond quizzing comprehension.
Ted Loveday is himself a hapax legomenon - a quizzing phenomenon that only occurs once in a blue moon.
How would YOU do in University Challenge? Try and answer these questions that have been asked on the quiz show
1: The psychologist Raymond Cattell identified ‘fluid’ and ‘crystallised’ as factors of what human capacity, defined by one authority as the extent to which one deals “flexibly and effectively with practical and theoretical problems”?
2: A 9th-century poem in Old English contained in the Exeter Book, the posthumously published papers of D.H. Lawrence, a novel for children by E. Nesbit, and an allegorical poem by Shakespeare all refer in their titles to what mythological bird?
3: The lion, hens and roosters, wild asses, tortoises and the elephant are, in sequence, the first entities introduced in which orchestral suite of fourteen movements, composed in 1886?
4: Chief of the Eleatic school of philosophy, what Greek philosopher demonstrated that the senses could not be trusted by constructing four paradoxes, including the Achilles and tortoise problems?
5: Which bird of the family trochillidae appears on the Bank of England £10 note first issued in 2000?
6: Which heteronyms are the names of a port in Alabama and a type of kinetic art invented in the 1930s by Alexander Calder?
7: Who is the subject of the opening lines of the first Idyll, ‘The Coming of Arthur’: ‘Leodogran, the King of Cameliard, / Had one fair daughter, and none other child; / And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth’?
8: What word of four letters denotes: in physics, the rate of change of acceleration; in physiology, an involuntary spasmodic muscular movement; and in colloquial speech, a stupid or contemptible person?
9: Originating from the Latin for ‘out’ and ‘begin to bloom’, which adjective describes a substance that has lost moisture and turned to a fine powder on exposure to air?
10: The title character of which 1972 David Bowie album was inspired by the British rock ’n’ roll singer Vince Taylor?
Go here for the answers: University Challenge: Are these the 20 toughest questions Jeremy Paxman has ever asked? - Telegraph
Harry Mount was at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1989-93
University Challenge: the Grand Final, review: new king of the show was 'on fire' - Telegraph
Saturday saw Cambridge lose to Oxford in both the men's and women's University Boat Races and even in the annual Goat Race.
But, last night on BBC Two, Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge beat Magdalen College, Oxford in the Grand Final of University Challenge - probably the world's toughest quiz show - to be crowned the new series champions.
And there's a new king of University Challenge. Practically single-handedly, Ted Loveday, a Cambridge law student, inspired Gonville & Caius College to a 255-105 victory.
Loveday, formerly of Latymer Upper School in west London, answered a staggering 12 starters for 10 correctly, enough to open up a lead over Magdalen from early on.
Among them was a lightning-quick answer to Jeremy Paxman's question, "What is the ancient Greek term for an expression that's found only once in literature?"
"Hapax legomenon," said floppy-haired Loveday instantly, with a heart-warming, nervous smile at his teammates: historian Michael Taylor, clinical medic and team captain Anthony Martinelli, and Jeremy Warner, who studies natural sciences.
Loveday's performance, and the cable-knit sweater he wore, gained plenty of interest on social media.
To make the victory even sweeter, it stopped Magdalen - four times previous winners in University Challenge - from becoming the most successful team of all time. Only Magdalen and Manchester University have won it four times before in the 53-year history of the competition.
28 teams were in the First Round of this season's University Challenge tournament, whose format is similar to a knockout football tournament.
University Challenge: the Grand Final, review: new king of the show was 'on fire'
Magdalen College, Oxford and Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge battled it out in the Grand Final of the quiz show
By Harry Mount
13 Apr 2015
The Telegraph
There's a new king of University Challenge. Practically single-handedly, Ted Loveday, a Cambridge law student, inspired Gonville & Caius College to a 255-105 victory over Magdalen College, Oxford, in tonight's final.
The teams were level pegging at one stage in the final (BBC)
Loveday, formerly of Latymer Upper School in west London, answered a staggering 12 starters for 10 correctly, enough to open up a lead over Magdalen from early on.
Among them was a lightning-quick answer to Jeremy Paxman's question, "What is the ancient Greek term for an expression that's found only once in literature?"
"Hapax legomenon," said floppy-haired Loveday instantly, with a heart-warming, nervous smile at his teammates: historian Michael Taylor, clinical medic and team captain Anthony Martinelli, and Jeremy Warner, who studies natural sciences.
Students at Oxford's Magdalen College watching the University Challenge final on the big screen (Andrew Fox/The Telegraph)
Loveday inspired Gonville & Caius College to a 255-105 victory over Magdalen College, Oxford, in last night's final and is now a hit on social media
Loveday's performance, and the cable-knit sweater he wore, gained plenty of interest on social media.
To make the victory even sweeter, it stopped Magdalen - four times previous winners in University Challenge - from becoming the most successful team of all time. Only Magdalen and Manchester University have won it four times before in the 53-year history of the competition.
After Oxford's clean sweep in the Boat Race – in the men’s, women’s and reserve crew races - the Light Blue victory over the Dark Blues is a welcome boost for Cambridge. As if all that weren't enough, tonight's show was a replay of the 2004 final, when Gonville & Caius made its only previous final appearance, losing to Magdalen.
Since Bamber Gascoigne first presented University Challenge in 1962 - Jeremy Paxman took over in 1994 - Cambridge colleges have now won nine times; Oxford have won 15 times.
I was watching the final in Magdalen's auditorium - based on an ancient Greek theatre - in the hope that they would become the greatest champions of all time. But it was not to be.
Tensions were high in the Magdelen auditorium with students hoping their team would win University Challenge for a record fifth time, but it was not to be (Andrew Fox/ The Telegraph)
"Ted Loveday put in the best performance since Gail Trimble," said Magdalen's captain, Hugh Binnie, 23, referring to the Corpus Christi undergraduate in the 2009 final, who scored 125 points in the last four minutes, "His own captain said it could have been seven against Ted on his own, and he would have won it. There were a couple of questions we could have got - but Ted buzzed in and answered them."
"Ted's always good," said Magdalen's Cameron Quinn, 27, from Los Angeles, who is doing a Masters in the French Enlightenment, “But I've never seen someone that on fire before."
I know from bitter experience how extremely hard it is to win all the University Challenge rounds and go all the way. In 2011, I was on Magdalen's semi-final team for Christmas University Challenge, when we lost to Trinity College, Cambridge, starring BBC broadcaster, Edward Stourton, and the Blackadder producer, John Lloyd. Those starters for 10 are crucial but agonisingly elusive. Just as the brain cogs start to crunch into gear, some Ted Loveday-like genius pounces. To get in that early on 12 of them, and get them all right, is beyond quizzing comprehension.
Ted Loveday is himself a hapax legomenon - a quizzing phenomenon that only occurs once in a blue moon.
How would YOU do in University Challenge? Try and answer these questions that have been asked on the quiz show
1: The psychologist Raymond Cattell identified ‘fluid’ and ‘crystallised’ as factors of what human capacity, defined by one authority as the extent to which one deals “flexibly and effectively with practical and theoretical problems”?
2: A 9th-century poem in Old English contained in the Exeter Book, the posthumously published papers of D.H. Lawrence, a novel for children by E. Nesbit, and an allegorical poem by Shakespeare all refer in their titles to what mythological bird?
3: The lion, hens and roosters, wild asses, tortoises and the elephant are, in sequence, the first entities introduced in which orchestral suite of fourteen movements, composed in 1886?
4: Chief of the Eleatic school of philosophy, what Greek philosopher demonstrated that the senses could not be trusted by constructing four paradoxes, including the Achilles and tortoise problems?
5: Which bird of the family trochillidae appears on the Bank of England £10 note first issued in 2000?
6: Which heteronyms are the names of a port in Alabama and a type of kinetic art invented in the 1930s by Alexander Calder?
7: Who is the subject of the opening lines of the first Idyll, ‘The Coming of Arthur’: ‘Leodogran, the King of Cameliard, / Had one fair daughter, and none other child; / And she was the fairest of all flesh on earth’?
8: What word of four letters denotes: in physics, the rate of change of acceleration; in physiology, an involuntary spasmodic muscular movement; and in colloquial speech, a stupid or contemptible person?
9: Originating from the Latin for ‘out’ and ‘begin to bloom’, which adjective describes a substance that has lost moisture and turned to a fine powder on exposure to air?
10: The title character of which 1972 David Bowie album was inspired by the British rock ’n’ roll singer Vince Taylor?
Go here for the answers: University Challenge: Are these the 20 toughest questions Jeremy Paxman has ever asked? - Telegraph
Harry Mount was at Magdalen College, Oxford, from 1989-93
University Challenge: the Grand Final, review: new king of the show was 'on fire' - Telegraph
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