Brave SOAS Eliminated from University Challenge
by Barty Roberts, Editor-in-Chief 09/12/2024
SOAS’ University Challenge team has been eliminated from University Challenge following a tie-break defeat against Durham in a playoff round. On Monday 25th November SOAS faced a quartet of Durham students in a match that ended 150 points all. The SOAS team in question had been defeated on Monday 11th November, by St Edmund Hall, Oxford by 195 points to 155. Scoring so highly in defeat entitled them to a ‘best-losers’ playoff versus Durham.
The SOAS team was captained by Tom Hasler, BSc Development Economics who was joined by Janet Delves, MA History of Art and Archaeology, Ella Dorn BA Chinese and Linguistics and Cameron Lambert, BA Global Development.
In SOAS’ first appearance, St Edmund Hall quickly established a 20 point lead but were pegged back to 35 all after a good display from SOAS in a round that consisted of naming the flags of countries who have recently elected their first female Head of State or Government. Controversy arose when the host, Amol Rajan, refused to accept the SOAS answer of St ‘Kittis’ and Nevis in place of St Kitts and Nevis.
The match remained close throughout with the score being tied at 110 all with less than ten minutes left to play. St Edmund Hall, however, established their dominance in the last five minutes scoring an unanswered 35 points that took them to victory.
SOAS’ second appearance was even more thrilling - SOAS were 55-25 down after ten minutes but managed to sail into a 55 point lead with less than five minutes to play. However, after Durham scored 55 unanswered points in three minutes, scores were level when the gong sounded. This led to a tie-break round in which SOAS were defeated after Cameron Lambert buzzed in early and answered the question ‘The guanaco is the wild ancestor of which domestic animal?’ incorrectly. Lambert answered ‘Alpaca’ when the correct answer was, in fact, Llama.
SOAS’ time on University Challenge has thus come to an end; it has, however, not passed without controversy. Host of the show, Amol Rajan has been criticised by some viewers on X (formerly Twitter) for allegedly speeding up the questions in the final few minutes which allowed Durham to score so quickly in the final few minutes. Other viewers were quick to praise what they considered to be one of the most breathtaking episodes of the famous quiz show in years.
SOAS has had a mixed history on University Challenge. This year marks our seventh entirety into the competition. We have had little success of note but in 2014 SOAS reached the semi-finals - our best ever result. Whilst the 2024 side have not achieved such lofty heights, they have hopefully inspired the next generation of quizzers. We may not have gone further than 2014 this year, but if the momentum created by this year’s reappearance is capitalised upon, success is surely not far away.
