The British Quiz Championship was won for the second year by Kevin Ashman the
undisputed British number one. Kevin's long list of titles include
Mastermind,
Brain of Britain, and
15-to-1.
The
runner-up was Roger Mortimore a stalwart of the
South London Quiz League and ever present in
Brain of London finals.
The
joint Bronze medalists were Daphne Fowler and Geoff Thomas who once again could not be split having been joint Silver medalists last year. Daphne is a former
Brain of Britain and emulated Bill McKaig's effort in successfully answering all 40 of the questions in the final section of
15-to-1. Geoff has numerous titles to his credit including
Todays The Day and
Counterpoint. Geoff is also a recent winner of the
Magnum competition, an in-house competition open to all former
Mastermind contestants.
| The British Quiz Championship |
|
Gold
|
Kevin Ashman
|
36 pts |
|
Silver
|
Roger Mortimore
|
19pts
|
|
Bronze
|
= Daphne Fowler
= Geoff Thomas
|
18pts
|
The dreaded
fifth place and narrowly missing a final place
was Mark Bytheway, a seasoned quiz 'professional' from the
Swindon League. Mark is ever-improving and always a threat.
Donald Yule, a runner-up in a
15-to-1 Grand Final and
founder of the South London League was close behind in sixth place.
Olav Bjortomt improved his position of last year and has
youth on his side. In his short career he has appeared on
15-to-one,
Brain of Britain,
One to Win, and
University Challenge.
Ritchie Parnell and Howard Pizzey came
joint eighth. Ritchie
specialises in Literature and was a member of the Cardiff
team presently involved in '
The Syndicate' on BBC. Howard is a
well known face on television having been successfully involved
in so many television and radio quizzes. The top ten was
completed by Mark Labbett, the gentle giant of the quiz world. Mark is
the captain of the Cardiff team on '
The Syndicate' but is
famous for his appearances on
University Challenge where he had one
or two dream-spells when he seemed to be the only one on either
side answering questions.
Just outside the top ten placings was
Ray Ward last years
Brain of Mensa and a member of the Rue St
George team that won the South London League this year. In a
star-studded field the next highest placer was none other than Chris
Hughes former
International Mastermind and television celebrity.
After winning
Mastermind Chris went on to make several
documentaries and was the captain opposite John Junkin on the television
version
of
Loose Ends.
Dag Griffiths, he of the fast finger, came next in
the field. Dag is General Secretary of the Southport and
Formby Quiz League, part of the formidable Merseyside League, and
is the reigning
15-to-1 Champion having shown remarkable speed of
thought to win the title. Brian Wilkins did magnificently to get
within a point of such an illustrious champion having
no media
experience whatsoever.
Eric Kilby scored a very worthy 30 per cent.
Eric is part of a very close-knit group of quiz experts from
Swindon. Although Eric is a two-time
Mastermind contestant his more
recent claim to fame is his success on the Tommy Boyd
Talksport
2000 Quiz in which he won the first prize of £10,000 only last month.
I think the most
impressive performance of the competition
was by a young Croatian lady Dorjana Sirola who scored 25 per cent
and showing a remarkable knowledge of history, geography,
literature and cinema. Dorjana's English is limited and in a quiz which
was designed with a British bias her performance was
outstanding.
Neville Twitchell who matched Dorjana's performance is very
much a mindsports all-rounder but commented on the obscurity of
the questions...and of course he was right.
Stanley Prince was a half point behind Neville and Dorjana. Stanley is the author of '
An Introduction to General Knowledge' and managed to sell 14
copies during the day. Now that's Hutzpah! Stanley is very fine
chess player as well as coaching the Prebendal school quiz team to
the junior version of
University Challenge.
Both Jim Clare and
Ronald Harman performed extremely well considering the quiz was not
their number one mind sport. Ritchie Venner is an interesting quiz
star. He combines his quizzing career with a very high level of
table tennis. Ritchie is the son of Harry Venner who was a high
class International table tennis star and coach of Chester Barnes.
Ritchie himself has been Sussex County Champion for many
years and is still improving at the grand old age of 33. Last year
he reached an all time high English ranking of 11 and is
currently ranked about 14.
Robert Linham was within half a point of
Ritchie. Robert will be familiar to you all very shortly as he is on
the current series of both '
The Weakest Link' and
University
Challenge.
Robert was also a great help to Magnus in setting up the
buzzers for the Grand Final and we
thank him for all his efforts. A
big thank you also to all the other contestants who performed so
well in such an exacting competition.
Another
thank you must go to Jaser
Electronics for supplying such an excellent buzzer system
and to their representative Sheila to ensure the proceedings had a
touch of glamour.
The last but most important thank you must go to
that great and
unrivalled doyen of the cerebral interrogation
Magnus Magnusson KBE. David Levy commented on the esteem with which
Magnus is held as the worlds most famous quizmaster. Magnus admits
to being something of a pedant but it is his meticulous
preparation and scholarly disposition that distinguishes his
performances.
The full results will pop up from
here.
Click here to see the
Preliminary Round questions and here for the
Grand Final questions.
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