Andy wrote: <<The big winner, I would argue, is Oxford, who was still alive entering ladder play.>> Although they then proceeded to lose 4/4, and play the last game with their star player on his back with a nosebleed (who proceeded to pick up just two negs) (I never did get round to apologising to Kentucky for that!). <<(On a side note, you should have seen me as I was watching the names being called -- apparently, my facial expressions made for quite the comic relief.)>> Ah, that was you, was it? Incidentally, for those (slightly deluded) people asking after me when meeting the Oxford team, I'm sorry I wasn't able to make it this time round. Finals, y'know? <<Based on this, I would consider that Britain's second team would have done equally well or close to it, and that if at all possible, when a British team drops, a second British team should replace it.>> Therein lies a problem. [what I am saying now is my own personal view, and in no way represents the opinions of Oxford or of British quizzing in general] I don't think that a second British team would have done as well. There is sadly quite a schism developing in the UK at the moment, between those teams who are still essentially amateur (play the odd quiz, find whoever they can for competitions, etc.) and those who take it a bit more seriously. Or to put it another way, there's quite a schism between everyone else and Oxford. The whole thing blew up when Oxford stated its intention as of this year to play everything over which it had any power (i.e. everything except a certain TV show) as a single university (pop. 15000) rather than as our 40-odd constituent colleges (pop. <400 each). If we hadn't done so, there was no way we could have been at the ICT. As part of this, we started practising regularly and trying to get more competitions to play. This allegedly "Americanocentric" approach has caused more than a little friction to develop here in the UK. The organiser of the 2001 British Championships tried to ban our combined team on the grounds (inter alia) that it was too strong. Mercifully this failed, but we have instead been limited to one team (this was allegedly on grounds of numbers; the hosts have two teams, and it was made clear that we could have two teams as well were we to return to colleges). Anyway, my point is that we are the only British team seemingly interested in doing really well at the ICT. Of course there is the financial aspect as well (no British teams get funding), which means that team members have to pay their own way to the tournament (about 400 per person this year), but even beside that, the interest in playing the game seriously isn't there (or at least, not yet). As an aside, because of the team limitation, we've decided to take a risk and base our team on younger players for the BC this year (those who would otherwise have got experience on Oxford II). If we're not at ICT next year, you can bet the gamble didn't come off. Oops, that was a rant. Oh well. They crucify me already. Rob.
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