A Trinity graduate was on the winning team this year of the BBC’s long-running quiz show University Challenge.
Conor McMeel, who is a graduate of Trinity and the University of Oxford, was on the Imperial College London team, which beat Corpus Christi College Cambridge to take the top prize in the show.
McMeel told RTÉ News: “It was a pretty great experience, start to finish, because I’ve been watching University Challenge for so long. The show was great fun. You meet a lot of people that you already know from other quiz competitions.”
“It’s nice not to have to keep the secret anymore!”, he said. “I’ve had to keep a straight face about the win whenever my friends ask.”
The show was pre-recorded last autumn.
“There’s a long period between when we’re selected and the whole production process, so all the guys on the team were initially worried that we wouldn’t like each other. But we’re all still good friends and we ended up doing pretty well”, he said.
McMeel and his teammates, Richard Brooks, Brandon Blackwell and Caleb Rich, were picked to compete for Imperial College last year.
“There were two rounds of trials, and I had to do a written exam first. Then the college picked the best 20-30 candidates. They had us buzzing in quizzes then for an evening, and then they chose the team members after that”, he said.
The team beat Trinity College Cambridge in last week’s semi final by 235 points to 80.
“You have to be somebody who enjoys accidentally spending a couple of hours on Wikipedia”, McMeel said. “A lot of the questions I answered in the show were subjects I’d read about or remembered from other quizzes.”
“As a team, we practised a lot and went to quizzes together. I don’t know a lot about astro-physics, for example, but a question came up about asteroids in the final. I’d read about them a couple of weeks previously so it was great that the reading paid off”, he said.
McMeel’s father, Shane McMeel, said the win was a huge source of pride for the family.
“What impressed me most was that there were 17,000 students at Imperial College, so to even get onto the team was an achievement. But to go all the way on to win was absolutely tremendous”, he said.
“We’re very proud. Conor always had a talent for facts. He just absorbed them like a sponge absorbs water, and could recall them without a problem. He was always good at that”, he added.
His sister, Clodagh McMeel, added: “It’s been great to cheer him on and see all the support Conor is getting. Everyone is delighted. I’m really proud of him. He put in a lot of work and it’s great that it’s paid off”, she said.
McMeel, who lives in Lucan in Dublin, told RTÉ News that he hopes to return to London to celebrate his team’s win when lockdown restrictions are eased.
