Twenty-two-year-old Maximilian Zeng played a key part in Imperial College London’s win against the University of Reading at the University Challenge final, which was aired on Monday (Apr 4).
The final, a hypercut of which can be seen in the YouTube video below, was a nail-biter, as Imperial College had been behind University of Reading 105 to 120 in the final moments of the championship.
The four-person team from Imperial College is made up of Mr Maximilian Zeng, Ms Fatima Sheriff, Mr Michael Mays, and Mr Gilbert Jackson.
Zeng answered the question that gave his team a boost, and the game ended with Imperial College winning 125 to the University of Reading’s 115, as five points had been docked from their score due to an incorrect interruption.
The host of the long-running and popular quiz show, Jeremy Paxman, announced, “By the narrowest of margins, Imperial have won and Reading have lost. Bad luck. Many congratulations to you, Imperial. It was a very, very strong performance, I thought.”
Netizens declared Mr Maximilian Zeng, a biochemistry student, to be the team’s MVP, or Most Valuable Player.
In February, he told CNA about his love for maps, which explains his truly impressive knowledge of geography.
The former Hwa Chong Institution student was quoted as saying, “I stare at maps for about four hours a day. Not in one stretch, but I just stare at maps when doing other things. I’ll just tab into Maps and tab out of it. I use OpenStreetMap; I hate Google Maps. I have OpenStreetMap open constantly; I’ll just tab in, tab out.
It’s kind of a… fixation. I have very little of a social life. So I have a very restricted set of interests. I just think of maps all day,” he replied gingerly.
I had a globe next to my bedside at like three years old, and I just memorised everything on it. And then I got my Geographica which was a (roughly) 600-page, A4-size for-scale world atlas when I was six years old. Again, I just spent all day looking at it.” /TISG
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