Harrison with the trophy
Darwinian Harrison Whitaker (PhD Film & Screen Studies 2021) led a Cambridge team to triumph in the British Student Quiz Championships held over the weekend.
Founded in 1998, the competition follows a similar format to University Challenge, with Oxford and Cambridge Universities competing as single institutions, rather than through their constituent colleges. The Cambridge A team, comprised of Harrison, Oscar Despard, Agnijo Banerjee and Sam Foo, beat Edinburgh in a finely balanced semi-final, to proceed to a closely fought final against Imperial.
The win was only the fourth for Cambridge in the championship’s 26-year history. Harrison, having also helped secure a win for Cambridge in 2022, is the second Cambridge participant to win more than one national championship. As the team’s highest scorer, he follows in the footsteps of fellow Darwinian Jason Golfinos (MPhil, Asian & Middle Eastern Studies, 2017), highest scorer in the winning Cambridge team of 2018.
“I really can’t overstate how incredible the last game was,” said Harrison. “We were down 225-70 at half-time, then went on a huge run at the start of the second half to narrow the gap, and ended up beating them to the last question to win 270-265.”
