Australian quizzing Olympic team members, Gordon McGregor, 65, and Ross Evans, 63. Photo: Angela Bacic
Thursday 10 November
By Angela Bacic
Australian quizzing Olympic team members, Gordon McGregor, 65, and Ross Evans, 63, are competing for gold in the individual trivia event at the Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games (JPPMG).
They have both been interested in trivia for as long as they can remember, but only became competitive in the sport recently.
While ‘trivia’ was once an evening down at the local pub, for these players it has now become a competitive sport at the JPPMG.
“It’s a great complement to physical sports,” sport convenor, Christian Kelly said.
Ross and Gordon have recently returned from the first Quizzing Olympiad held in Athens earlier this month, where the Australian team placed 13th.
“It’s amazing how smart the really good people are. They are quite brilliant,” Ross said.
Their specialities include history, geography and science but Gordon likes to dabble in pop music and sport from the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
“Most questions asked are from the ‘90s and my knowledge on that is zero,” Gordon laughed.
In the 2014 JPPMG, Ross won a bronze medal in the individual event while Gordon competed in the team event with two of his friends and took home a gold medal.
“The guy who beat me won by a lot but he’s not here this year,” Ross said.
At these games the two have very different goals.
“My main goal this time round was to really just have a bit of fun,” Gordon said.
“If I get anything, pick up something or finish in the top three than that will be a bonus.”
“And I’m here to try and win actually, however there will be some good competition,” Ross said.
After one day of competition Gordon is currently leading the individual division while Ross is in third position.
The trivia final will be held tomorrow (Friday) afternoon at Jupiters Gold Coast, Broadbeach.
(Try some trivia questions from today’s competition, listed below.)
The 10th biennial Jupiters Pan Pacific Masters Games is being held 5 – 13 November 2016 on the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia.
The event showcases competition in 43 sports and is hosting 13,000 participants from Queensland, interstate and overseas.
Questions:
The answers are below:
