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Ronan Higginson
Ronan Higginson octochamp statistics | |
---|---|
Final position | TBC |
Seeding | TBC |
Points total | 1041 |
Conundrums solved | 7 |
![](/images/thumb/f/f3/Ronan_Higginson.png/200px-Ronan_Higginson.png)
Ronan Higginson was an octochamp in Series 87. At the time of his appearances, he was an A-Level Student from Ramsgate in Kent. He is also an Apterite who has reached No. 1 on the Apterous Pro Rank leaderboard.
Appearances on the programme
Series 86 Heats
Higginson made his heavily anticipated TV debut on 17 May 2023, against five-game winner Jonathan Seal. With both players having spotted two nine-letter words BATTERIES and REPOSTING, Higginson won with a strong 132 points to Seal's still comparatively impressive 98 points. These two scores helped make the highest joint score in a preliminary game under the new 15 round format; a record unbeaten for nine-and-a-half years.
Ronan then rattled off seven more sublime performances, which were also all centuries, and included further 9's such as NEOTERIST, ARAGONITE, RITUALITY, AMBROSIAN and ALPENROSE to become only the second octochamp of the series after Cillian McMulkin over four months prior. Of particular note, in his fifth match, Higginson achieved only the thirteenth perfect game with 135 points being both the max and his score. This was the second time within a year this had occurred; Tom Stevenson's record-breaking performance in Episode 7860 being the last one. And, in his sixth game, he equalled Elliott Mellor's four-year-old record for the highest margin of victory in a game of Countdown when he defeated challenger Aaron Sutton by 133 points; this game also confirmed his qualification for the series finals and his joint-highest score of 143. He also showed exceptional skill in his conundrum solving ability, with not only the variety of difficulties faced, but also with four of them each being solved in under a second.
Ronan finished off his heats and established himself as the almost certain No.1 seed, with a 13-round max performance against Richard Clingen. This game also marked the fourth time he had held an opponent to under 30 points and the fourth time he had won a game by over 100 points; the former being an all-time joint-record. He ultimately finished with 1,041 points and an average of just over 130 per game; this, along with making him the 31st member of the 900 club and only the fifth person to score 1,000, also gave him the 2nd-highest octototal of all time, with only Elliott Mellor having more points.
ZoomDown
Prior to appearing on the show, Higginson participated in episodes 81 and 82 of ZoomDown, triumphing against fellow Countdown alumni Philip Aston but losing to Tom Cappleman. He later appeared in ZoomDown Series 4, winning two games before losing on a crucial conundrum to Ahmed Mohamed. But after tetrachamp Adam Beach was unable to participate in the series finals, Higginson qualified for the finals as number 8 seed.
In the quarter-finals of ZoomDown Series 4, Higginson caused an upset when he defeated number 1 seed Brendan Whitehurst on a crucial conundrum, winning with 99 points to Whitehurst's 88. He then went on to beat number 5 seed Adam Dexter with 112 – 81, thus making a spot in the grand final against Rachael Montgomery. However, Rachael gained the lead when Ronan had coatage ☓ disallowed and also got to one away on the numbers round that followed, whereas Rachael got the target spot on. He did eventually claw back with COWRIES - forcing a crucial conundrum - but Ronan had buzzed incorrectly with scramload ☓ with only 0.8 seconds left, thus resulting in him taking the runner-up spot.
Despite this loss, his success in the series had him qualify for the ZoomDown Championship of Champions. He had been drawn to play against Conor Travers, and both had started pretty well in the first quarter of their game by maxing the first three rounds. However, two disallowed words and Conor's words like OSTEOID and APRONFUL helped him secure one of many 14 max games throughout the tournament. The scoreline was left 125 – 86 in Conor's favour, helping him progress onward to win the series.
Episodes
# | Date | Type | Contestant 1 | Score | Contestant 2 | Presenters | Guest | Lex | Max | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
8019 | 17/05/2023 | P | Jonathan Seal | 98 – 132 | Ronan Higginson | Colin Murray | Rachel Riley | Annie MacManus | Susie Dent | 143 | ||
8020 | 18/05/2023 | P | Ronan Higginson | 110 – 64 | Brian Cookson | Colin Murray | Rachel Riley | Annie MacManus | Susie Dent | 124 | ||
8021 | 19/05/2023 | P | Ronan Higginson | 126 – 12 | Greg Raine | Colin Murray | Rachel Riley | Annie MacManus | Susie Dent | 133 | ||
8022 | 22/05/2023 | P | Ronan Higginson | 130 – 50 | John Waterhouse | Colin Murray | Rachel Riley | Vick Hope | Susie Dent | 135 | ||
8023 | 23/05/2023 | P | Ronan Higginson | 135 – 27 | Martin Peirce | Colin Murray | Rachel Riley | Vick Hope | Susie Dent | 135 | ||
8024 | 24/05/2023 | P | Ronan Higginson | 143 – 10 | Aaron Sutton | Colin Murray | Rachel Riley | Vick Hope | Susie Dent | 166 | ||
8025 | 25/05/2023 | P | Ronan Higginson | 143 – 57 | Andy Sheppard | Colin Murray | Rachel Riley | Vick Hope | Susie Dent | 151 | ||
8026 | 26/05/2023 | P | Ronan Higginson | 122 – 17 | Richard Clingen | Colin Murray | Rachel Riley | Cally Beaton | Susie Dent | 124 |