Dubliner Oscar Despard leads team to victory in University Challenge final

The 22-year-old from Portobello led Christ’s College Cambridge to the final of the competition, where they achieved 175 points to beat the team from Warwick University by just five points.

His team were presented with their trophy by award-winning actor Ian McKellen, who congratulated the Dubliner and his team on their win.

Mr Despard, who is studying molecular biology at Cambridge and has begun a PhD focusing on proteostasis – how cells maintain a balance of making and breaking down proteins – using cryo-electron tomography, has said taking part in the programme was a childhood dream.

Speaking to the Irish Independent last week, Mr Despard said: “I watched the show a lot growing up, with my mother in particular. So when I ended up at the University of Cambridge, it was a natural thing to try because I thought it would be quite interesting.

“I went about setting up a quiz ­society at Christ’s College to administer the college’s participation. We ran a two-round selection process, starting with an online quiz that people could complete in their own time.

“Then we invited the 10 best scorers to take part in an in-person round on the buzzer.”

Mr Despard earned nine H1s in his Leaving Cert from Sandford Park School in Ranelagh, and was awarded the best individual prize at the BT Young Scientist exhibition in 2020.

His mother, Professor Niamh Moran, is a scientist at the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

He said his family were “very excited” to see him compete as he revealed that his team shared a spreadsheet of more than 200 knowledge areas to revise ahead of the notoriously difficult quiz.

“I got to read all of Shakespeare, which I probably wouldn’t have done otherwise,” he said. “And we did a surprising amount of video game revision – they’ve broadened the question topics in recent years.”