Trinity College won this year’s University Challenge contest with an impressive 105-point margin over Oxford’s Somerville College. 

Cambridge was looking for a convincing win, having lost to Oxford in both the men’s and women’s boat races. The sixth-year of the alternative annual Oxford & Cambridge Goat Race also served up a mediocre result, after ‘&’  trotted to victory, amid much confusion. 

Somerville took an early lead in the final, after team members demonstrated their knowledge of Richard the Lionheart and L.Ron Hubbard. Trinity struggled with a series of bonus questions on French novels, but managed to correctly answer questions on everything from spectroscopy to Jane Austen. The final score was 240-135. 

The winning team comprised of captain Ralph Morley, Matthew Ridley, Filip Drnovsek-Zorko, and Richard Freeland. Drnovsek-Zorko, who studies natural sciences, said: "The whole experience was really enjoyable, and I'd recommend it to anyone.  Even if you think you're not good enough - I did! - it's really fun to try for it. Obviously winning makes it all the sweeter but I think I'd have come away pretty happy even if we'd lost.

"I think our advantage was that we complemented each other's strengths really well. There were only a couple of instances where we all knew the answer".

He added that the Somerville team were "very competent throughout". "We had lunch with [them] before the final, which was a bit strange. We'd both just got through fairly tense semi-finals and I think we were both kind of forgetting there was still a final to be played."

Trinity reached the University Challenge final after beating Christ Church, Oxford, in the first round, and Peterhouse, Cambridge, in the second. Trinity won its next three matches against Manchester, SOAS, and then Manchester again, in a show of retribution against the winner of the last two series. In all of its matches, Trinity never failed to win by fewer than 80 points. The college faced its toughest challenge in its first meeting with Manchester, which Trinity won 285-205. 

The fact that there were no women in the final attracted some criticism. Mary Beard, professor of Classics, tweeted during the programme: “Oh dear Somerville College Oxford on University Challenge is all men!”.