Austen Allen

Austen Allen octochamp statistics
Final position	TBC
Seeding	TBC
Points total	865
Conundrums solved	6

Austen Allen in Series 94, 25 years after his first appearance.

Austen Allen was a contestant in Series 46 and an octochamp in Series 94 from Ardara, County Donegal. As of his second appearance, he was a medical records clerical officer at Letterkenny University Hospital, and he will almost certainly be back for the series finals in December. He also joined Apterous in September 2026, after the broadcast of all his heat games.

Appearances

Series 46

Austen made his initial appearance as a teenager in October 2001, against Simon Cartwright. Allen played a competitive contest against Cartwright as he was only beaten in two rounds, but unfortunately that was enough to knock him out at the first time of asking.

Series 94

Heat Games

After that tough first encounter, he returned almost 25 years later for another bite at the cherry against fellow returnee Fiona. Despite Allen falling eighteen points behind with Farquharson spotting AUGMENTED in Round 1 (as both players spotted CREMATION in Round 4), he eventually struck back with his own nine-letter word spot of SUBREGION. He secured his teapot after getting closer on the final numbers round, as well as a century with the good conundrum solve of INSTITUTE. Both of the two former aspects would become hallmarks of his play as he chose four large for every numbers round, and secured seven more centuries during the rest of his heats.

Allen throughout all his preliminaries achieved a high of 125 points which also included the only other nine-letter word spot of DEFLATING, and scored a low 101 at the end of his second filming block. This gave Allen one of the most consistent runs of preliminary scores among non-Apterous subscribers, and for the matter of any octochamp. It was also the third highest non-Apto octotal during the Apterous era, with only Stephen Briggs and Mark Finnerty having greater aggregate scores.

After finishing his last heat with thirteen maxed rounds, his aforementioned personal best of 125 and an eighth century to his name – Allen registered an excellent octotal of 865. This gave him an average of just over 108 per game and set him up as the provisional No. 2 seed, eleven points behind Cameron Lovatt.

Some other notable parts from Austen's run, included his 865 points of breaking the record for the lowest octotal where all the scores were centuries; it tallied just under the 876 that Mark Finnerty achieved over 2.5 years prior. He also had one of the higher available octorun totals recorded in the 15-round format with 1,106 points available across his eight games and he was the first octochamp crowned with contestants' surnames removed from the nameplates.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
3103	17/10/2001	P	Simon Cartwright	91 – 78	Austen Allen	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Alastair Stewart	Richard Samson	120
8848	04/09/2026	P	Fiona	83 – 108	Austen	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Zoe Lyons	Susie Dent	164
8849	07/09/2026	P	Austen	108 – 57	Chloe	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Katharine Merry	Susie Dent	124
8850	08/09/2026	P	Austen	107 – 38	Brian	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Katharine Merry	Susie Dent	133
8851	09/09/2026	P	Austen	104 – 67	Eric	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Katharine Merry	Susie Dent	127
8852	10/09/2026	P	Austen	110 – 60	Farrukh	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Katharine Merry	Susie Dent	145
8853	11/09/2026	P	Austen	101 – 33	Neil	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Katharine Merry	Susie Dent	145
8854	14/09/2026	P	Austen	102 – 38	Jess	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Marcus Brigstocke	Susie Dent	134
8855	15/09/2026	P	Austen	125 – 51	John	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Marcus Brigstocke	Susie Dent	134

External links

• Local reporting of Austen's exploits after his eighth game