Ian Bayley

Ian is not that well known on television, as he has only ever done University Challenge, but he is one of the greats of the non-televised circuit, and he is indisputedly the best student quizzer in the country.

He started his quiz career at Imperial College London, when he formed part of their team on University Challenge. They lost in the first round, but won their highest scoring losers playoff before eventually losing to Manchester.

He made a re-appearance in the 2000-2001 series on the Balliol College, Oxford team which lost unexpectedly to Hull in the quarter-finals. Ian was the star player for Balliol throughout their run averaging about 7 starters a game. Due to his appearing for two institutions, Ian holds the record for most losses on University Challenge (3) which is most ironic considering he is probably one of the best players ever to appear on the show.

He has been the key figure behind Balliol's hatricks in the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Quiz and the British Academic Quiz Championships. He dominates all the Oxford University record tables for individual performances in buzzer quizzes.

He has also played in the NAQT American Quiz Championships 4 times, once for Imperial, once for Balliol, and twice for Oxford as a whole. This year the Oxford team came 9th overall out of 36 teams, with Ian being one of the best players in the entire tournament, despite most of the questions being very Americanised.

In 2001, Ian appeared on the Radio 4 quiz Masterteam, with David Brewis and David Stainer. The team won the final to become series champions with Ian having taken the bulk of the specialist subject rounds during the competition. Bayley is also rumoured to be on the verge of applying for Fifteen to One.