21 Mar Europe – S1 Week 8’s Round Up

Week 8 in Quiz Nations Europe saw the teams scrapping it out for Champions League places, promotion and relegation.

What better place to start than Elite 1, with the irresistible force that is the Broken Warriors taking on the hitherto immovable object of Ollie and Gracies Lonely Heartclub Band. Ollie and Gracies Band have been making sweet music all season, dovetailing harmoniously while ‘droppin’ knowledge like the A-Bomb’ as Tupac once said (the rapper rather than the Incan ruler or the Peruvian revolutionary). However the Broken Warriors lay in wait, and the quartet of Ashman, Gibson, Bayley and Bjortomt were blowin’ cooler than Coltrane’s combo, as they laid down a mellifluous masterclass for the ages – truly ‘A Quiz Supreme’. Only the Icelandic waterfall Dettifoss stood between the Warriors and a perfect performance, a team full house, but Ollie and Gracies were swept away in a torrent of points, 62 of them in all, which – as the Warriors would doubtless have known had we asked them – is the atomic number of Samarium and the total points accumulated by Leicester City in the 2019-20 season. Ollie and Gracies still look set fair for a Champions League spot, but third-placed Nerds of Steel’s 45-35 win over Chiltern Wanderers keeps the race going right to the final week. Elsewhere Viddr edged Denmark Y 36-35, Switzerland Quizzers recorded an impressive 47-29 win over Gallium, and Social Quiztancers overcame Danish Pastry 43-33. 

Over in Elite 2, it’s a veritable pile-up of quizzing excellence at the top of the table. North-South Divide maintained their 100% record, but had to dig deeper then Heinrich Schliemann to close out a 43-41 win over an in-form Team North East. In the match of the day, The Motley Crew came up against Paul Jam, and this one went right down to the final Mystery Boxes, with TMC pipping PJ at the post, 48-46, to put themselves in pole position for the Champions League. Tiimi Nimi consolidated fourth position with a 43-38 win over Northern Lights; Scotland’s Capercaillies were in fine form, racking up a half century of points in their victory over Denmark X (50-19), and Witless Protection Program just failed to douse the Pyromanians fire, losing 36-32 in a close match.

The race for the title in the Civilian league is between Quality of Mercians and Pick and Mix, and the contenders faced off in a corker of a contest, with Q.O.M. prevailing 41-38 to secure promotion to the Elite Leagues and put them one win away from the title. While P&M look favourites to clinch the second promotion spot, three teams are still in the mix going into Week 9’s Super Sunday showdown. Scratch and Dude Abides kept the pressure up by overcoming Bulgarian Rational Society (49-26) and The Mancunians (39-33) respectively. Elsewhere, Portugal’s Manos Castro powered past Universally Challenged 43-21, and Zbroing 747! beat The North Remembers 33-29. 

There was a cross-continental flurry of unique 2 pointers this week. Hans Ewald Hansen of Denmark Y was the only individual to get neutron star, and his opponent Sten ‘Hakan’ Wallmark of Social Quiztancers picked up 2 for Dettifoss. Gallium’s Thibaut Charton knows his winter sport, picking up a solo 2 for Slopestyle; Viddr’s Richard Appleyard is clearly a wine connoisseur, and can tell his Barolos from his Barbaresco, and Rogier van Toor of Witless Protection Program pleasingly picked up a solo on the solo career of Darius Rucker. 

We had a couple of team solos this week – Switzerland Quizzers were the only team to know about Tyrolean grey cheese, and Olav Bjortomt impressively steered the Broken Warriors towards Antoine de Paris, the world’s first celebrity hairdresser. Who’d have thought Stylists would languish in dead last position in terms of topic pick popularity, with only Dhruv Sharma of Denmark Y brave enough to take it on solo? 

Roll on Week 9 and Super Sunday!