University of ΎΕΎΕΙ«Σ°ΤΊ quizzers win University Challenge for fifth time, becoming joint most successful in seriesβ history
A conversation with contestant Ray Power
ΎΕΎΕΙ«Σ°ΤΊβs University Challenge team have been crowned winners of the UKβs toughest quizzing tournament.
Having beaten out New College Oxford and LSE to reach the quarterfinals, from there defeating UCL and Sheffield, and sailing past Imperial with 250 points to 70 in the final semi-final round, they finally triumphed over Edinburgh in last nightβs finale.
The victory is an historic one for the University, as with this fifth win (2006, 2009, 2012, 2013, 2025) it becomes the most successful University in the history of the competition, joint with Imperial College London.
The winning team this year was made up of Ray Power (Film Studies and English Literature), Kirsty Dickson (Medicine), Rob Faulkner (Physics with Astrophysics) and their captain, Kai Madgwick (PhD, AI and Astrophysics), along with reserve player, Argyro Olympitis (PHD in Immunology).
I feel really lucky to have been able to meet the rest of the team, Iβve made four really good friends. I donβt think we expected to have such a good time together!
It can feel as though thereβs something mystic about acquiring a seat on the University Challenge team, a tap on the shoulder in a quiet area of the quad one day maybe, but according to Ray, that that isnβt so.
βGrowing up, my Grandma was always a huge fan of University Challenge, and when a friend of mine whoβd been a contestant a couple of years before told me that they were recruiting again, I signed myself up!β
After passing a first-stage online quiz, and doing herself proud in a trial match held by Quiz Society, Rayβs name was on the team sheet.
βThe great thing about how UoM do it is that the whole thing is led by students. The Uni supports it, but itβs all run by Quiz Society. Thereβs a real sense of community, we even have contestants from previous years coming back for mentoring and to help us practice.β
Rob, Kirsty, and Ray, all took the same sign-up route to the team, while their Captain, Kai Madgwick, was already a Quiz Soc stalwart, having competed in plenty of inter-university quiz tournaments.
Once in the team, the training process is tough, spending hours each Tuesday sequestered away in a quiet part of the library, testing each other and playing along with old episodes. It wasnβt all about gruelling revision, though.
βI feel really lucky to have been able to meet the rest of the team, Iβve made four really good friends. I donβt think we expected to have such a good time together!β said Ray. βItβs hard to pick out just one highlight, but filming the trophy presentation in London was amazing, and it was so lovely to be together with the team through the whole process.β
Ray insists that it isnβt all down to their hard work β thereβs some chance involved too, and that losing starter questions, or feeling like you donβt have the momentum of the game, can really affect the outcome. The score of the semi-final against Imperial, she says, really didnβt reflect how strong that team were, and that ΎΕΎΕΙ«Σ°ΤΊ were lucky to have played such a great team game that round, where everybody contributed to the win.
And while there might be an element of chance, it sounds like thereβs a little bit of fate in there too, with a semi-final tie against UCL seeing them ace a music round, picking out tunes from Fontaines DC, Black Midi, Squid, and Wet Leg.
βItβs so weird, Kaiβs a huge Squid fan - one of the first conversations I remember having with them was about going to a Squid gigβ¦ after that music round, Squid actually shouted us out on Instagram!β
Ray says they never expected to win when they began the contest, they just kept playing and ended up in the final.
βWe never expected to win, we were just happy to be there. The whole thing was nerve-wracking! It was so intense and felt so much like a super weird school trip!β
Having been beaten by Edinburgh 195 to 80 in the quarterfinals of the competition, the tournamentβs last leg was a chance for the ΎΕΎΕΙ«Σ°ΤΊ team to right some wrongs.
βYeah, they beat us really badly. It was scary but we were happy with how far weβd already come. We knew how wonderful and clever the team from Edinburgh were, and we just went into it wanting to do our best!β
Do their best they did, and in bringing home the trophy for ΎΕΎΕΙ«Σ°ΤΊ, they are the fifth team to do so, placing UoM at the top of the all-time leaderboard, in the company of ICL.