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Contesting for a cause
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Citibank teams emerged triumphant at the Free A Child Today quiz contest
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THE WINNERS Ramakrishnan and Srinivasan of Citibank with quizmaster Gautam Bhimani
While introducing the finalists, cricket presenter and quizmaster Gautam Bhimani spoke about one of the irrational beliefs that surround quizzing — "the team that tops in the preliminary rounds will lose in the finals". The comment was aimed at Citibank II (Ramakrishnan and Srinivasan), which scored the most in the prelims and qualified for the finals of FACT (Free A Child Today) 2006, the quiz contest for corporates that CRY organises annually. In the finals, the team ran up a huge lead in no time and, barring the last round, had little reason to worry over Gautam's prognosis.
The contest provided fresh evidence in support of another belief prevalent among quizzers — "few teams can successfully defend their titles". Winners of last year's FACT, Infosys gave a lacklustre performance, managing just a lowly 20 points. Actually, Vinod and Prashanth (of Infosys) squandered a lot of points by pressing the buzzer too often and accumulating a lot of negative points.
The day belonged to Citibank (Citibank II won the title and Citibank I finished third). Wipro and Citibank I alone seemed able to challenge Citibank II's dominance. At the start of the last round, Citibank II was on 115, Wipro on 80 and Citibank I (Ashwin and Karthik) on 65, forcing Gautam to say that this round is essentially a battle for the second place. He had to eat his words with Wipro climbing up to 110 and Citibank I to 105, at the end of the round. Citibank II, on the other hand, was quiet, managing just a leisurely amble to 125.
Although the other three teams (HLL, Infosys and Sanmar) were way behind, the contest was highly competitive and all the teams displayed high learning and `great creativity' in their answers.
As it began, the contest took a brush with the latest controversy that is eliciting eager comments in India and Down Under. The first poser in the `Hangman' round, which is about guessing a personality based on certain clues, was on a cricketer who has `pushed' himself into the limelight — Damien Martyn.
The pick of the Dateline/Timeline Round — "February 5, 1976. Do you have a little bee in the bonnet? Stop bluffing". The birthday of the Big B's son Abhishek Bachchan, who has to be the `little B' and has starred in the film "Bluffmaster".
Gautam's choice of questions was a treat. His list included the Big Mac Index, an exchange rate theory created by The Economist using the burger; Yugoslav Muris Tabakovic, who is a world leader in the making of giant scoreboards and whose expertise is now lapped up by cricket managements around the world; and the Ukrainian football coach, who was not paid his wages during the World Cup because he also happens to be a member of parliament and is not allowed to draw a salary.
PRINCE FREDERICK
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