JEOPARDY! champion Juveria Zaheer has come out victorious in the very popular trivia competition.
Juveria was crowned the winner of last night’s Jeopardy! Champions Wildcard Tournament episode.
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Despite a major setback in game one of the finale, Juveria beat Andy Tirrell and Michael Menkhus, pocketing a hard-fought $100,000 and a Tournament of Champions ticket.
She dominated Final Jeopardy!, concluding with $31.8K after she answered the Final Jeopardy! clue correctly.
Juveria took to X, fka Twitter, shortly after her win to share her Jeopardy! journey.
“I lost on @jeopardy on May 8, 2023. Two competitions and seven games later, I’m headed to the Tournament of Champions,” she wrote in the tweet.
“It’s an unlikely story, and I’m still waiting to wake up from this dream. Thank you for all of your love and support on this journey.”
Added to the tweet was a snap of her smiling behind the game show podium, with the $31.8K displayed on the front of it.
Fellow contest winner Mattea Roach commented on Juveria’s win on X.
Mattea reshared her post, adding “I know that’s right” in all caps with crown emojis.
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Juveria replied to Mattea’s tweet, revealing that the latter’s retweet had her fainting.
BIG TIME WINNER
Season 40’s biggest standout star sealed the deal in game two of the Champions Wildcard finals on February 2.
She entered with a rollover score of 20,000, Andy 14,400, and Michael 0.
Juveria, however, suffered a huge slip-up in game one– she dropped 14,000 on Final Jeopardy when she could have kept her massive score.
She instead entered the nail-biting deciding match with a lead but not a commanding one, which Ken Jennings, 49, admitted was a “big score shift.”
Nonetheless, she came out swinging as usual, and after the Jeopardy! round, had 6,200 (despite a Daily Double miss), Andy 2,000, and Michael 2,800.
In Double Jeopardy!, her opponents went all-in on the remaining Daily Doubles, but with another eight correct responses, she secured an overall runaway despite not having the lead.
Final Jeopardy! under ARMY TECHNOLOGY read: “Bearing the name of a man who died in Iowa in 1838, these began service in 1979 & today number in the thousands.”
No one came up with “Black Hawk Helicopters,” and Juveria won it all with a score of 11,800 and a combined 31,800, looking overjoyed.
Andy finished with 4400 and a combined 14,800, earning a $50,000 second place consolation prize.
Michael finished with 2,799, earning a $25,000 consolation prize.
Fans flooded social media, thrilled for the comeback queen, who had to win two past-player tournaments and a greuling eight matches to get into February’s ToC.
‘STONE COLD ASSASSIN’
One Reddit user wrote: “I am thrilled for Juveria! Love that she had to overcome two tournaments to get to where she is.”
Another wrote: “Juveria is so good, wow, Lock game after lock game in these tournaments, so excited to see her partake in the ToC!!”
A third wrote: “She did it!!!!!” and a fourth: “She will not be an easy matchup in the Tournament of Champions given how unstoppable she was.
A fifth critic wrote: “She’s going to run into a brick wall with Chris Panullo tho.”
A sixth fan wrote: “ToC participants are officially on notice: Juveria is coming for you, and she’s a stone-cold trivia assassin.”
An additional fan commented: “Juveria has nerves of steel. On a side note, I’m starting to get tournament fatigue. Looking forward to getting back to the standard J! format.”
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