Hazel Drury

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Hazel Drury
octochamp statistics
Final position TBC
Seeding TBC
Points total 1,001
Conundrums solved 8
Hazel Drury in Series 73...
...then solving the conundrum in Episode 6406....
...and finally in Series 94.

Hazel Drury was a contestant in Series 73, and an octochamp in Series 94. Originally from Preston, Lancashire, she spent her formative years in County Leitrim, Ireland, and was an undergraduate student studying Geography and Nua-Ghaeilge (Modern Irish) at Maynooth University in County Kildare as of her first appearance. As of her second appearance, having since moved to Ramsay on the Isle of Man, she was working in a client support role for a Manx insurance brokerage and noted to be a passionate Burnley F.C. fan.

She is regarded as one of the best letters players on Apterous, having joined the site shortly after her first round of games, and has racked up over 6,000 pencils (i.e. the first time a word is declared as a maximum) to date. Additionally, she is also one of Apterous' most experienced players, having over 40,000 games logged, and she has spent an extended period of time as part of the Top 10 in the Pro Ranks. Finally, Drury stands alone as the highest-scoring female octochamp in the history of Countdown, and will be returning for the end-of-series finals in December.

Appearances

Series 73 and 75

She made her initial debut in Series 73 as a teenager; this specific series was noted for being extremely difficult, and full of top players and Apterites making their mark. Drury managed to accumulate four wins including a solitary century, before coming unstuck against Anthony Poulton-Smith after neither player spotted the crucial conundrum of SOCIOPATH. With 439 points across five wins, it was not enough for Drury to qualify for the series finals.

She reappeared on 3 August 2016 as the audience member who solved the conundrum, after both contestants failed to do so. That episode by coincidence had fellow Series 94 returnee, and octochamp Cameron Lovatt as one of the competitors.

Series 94

Just under eleven years after her first defeat, Drury came back for what would turn out to be one of the all-time great octochamp runs. Kicking off in fine style with 130 points against Alan, which also saw her spot the two nine-letter-words of SPORULATE and SULTANATE, she then completely one-upped her debut in her second game. Not only did she get the highest score of the series of 143, but also recorded only the seventeenth-ever max game, and the first by a woman since Jenny Haldane in 1988. She also spotted two further nines; TRACERIES and EROSIONAL, while her opponent, another Alan, only scored in two of the four number rounds.

In her third game, she yet again scored 143, with two more nines in RODENTIAL and GOUTINESS to rack up a phenominal aggregate score after only three games of 416. That score of 143, along with the one set in her previous heat, both broke Jen Steadman's longstanding record for the highest score ever achieved by a female contestant. In her next heat, she continued her high-scoring streak, logging 129 and another two nines in CATENOIDS and RELOADING; that fourth score of 125+ in a row put her on a par with Luke Johnson-Davies and Ronan Higginson, who are the only other 15-round format contestants to have achieved such a scoring feat.

Despite scoring a low of 104 in her fifth game (one reason for that being that there was no nine-letter-word available to spot), in her sixth she notched up another nine in ASPERSION, while also maxing 13 rounds, and scoring 127, to log an accumulated tally of 776 after six games. Her remarkable scoring streak was so notable, that without hitting eight games, she had already scored higher than two octochamps in the series so far; those being Pini Stimler and fellow returnee Karen Pearson. She secured her spot in the finals when she won her seventh game with 112, in a second instance in which no nines were available, taking her tally to 888 which was higher than all of the other series octochamps to date.

After only dropping points during her last heat in the penultimate numbers round, Hazel notched up a staggering 96 maxes out of 120 (equal to Ronan Higginson and Ed McCullagh as one of the highest of all time). Also, the final game total of 113 allowed Hazel to become the first female player to score at least 1,000 points in a preliminary run, and made her only the sixth ever to do so. This also placed Drury as the provisional #1 seed by a country mile, and she became only the sixteenth person ever to solve all eight conundrums in their preliminary matches (by coincidence the third in 2026 alone). Her points scoring rate of 92.85% (1,001 out of 1,078) also stands as one of the highest conversion rates ever recorded by an octochamp on the show.

Outside of Countdown

Drury has attended multiple Co-events since her first set of appearances, actually managing to win CoWat 2018 to make her the first female winner of a co-event, having already become the first female finalist in the 2017 edition of CoWat. She has won a further eight Co-events since then; coincidentally either at Co:Mon or Co:Wat.

Episodes

# Date Type Contestant 1 Score Contestant 2 Presenters Guest Lex Max
6238 29/10/2015 P Andrew Irvine 63 – 90 Hazel Drury Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Michael Whitehall Susie Dent 135
6239 30/10/2015 P Hazel Drury 87 – 43 Nick Griggs Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Michael Whitehall Susie Dent 153
6240 2/11/2015 P Hazel Drury 74 – 69 Gary Cocker Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Michael Whitehall Susie Dent 140
6241 3/11/2015 P Hazel Drury 109 – 48 Matt Goulette Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Michael Whitehall Susie Dent 123
6242 4/11/2015 P Hazel Drury 79 – 88 Anthony Poulton-Smith Nick Hewer Rachel Riley Michael Whitehall Susie Dent 124
8881 21/10/2026 P Alan 45 – 130 Hazel Colin Murray Rachel Riley Mark Radcliffe Susie Dent 146
8882 22/10/2026 P Hazel 143 – 20 Alan Colin Murray Rachel Riley Mark Radcliffe Susie Dent 143
8883 23/10/2026 P Hazel 143 – 52 Angus Colin Murray Rachel Riley Mark Radcliffe Susie Dent 146
8884 26/10/2026 P Hazel 129 – 79 John Colin Murray Rachel Riley Ellie Simmonds Susie Dent 144
8885 27/10/2026 P Hazel 104 – 64 Joe Colin Murray Rachel Riley Ellie Simmonds Susie Dent 122
8886 28/10/2026 P Hazel 127 – 72 Ruth Colin Murray Rachel Riley Ellie Simmonds Susie Dent 130
8887 29/10/2026 P Hazel 112 – 41 Michael Colin Murray Rachel Riley Ellie Simmonds Susie Dent 124
8888 30/10/2026 P Hazel 113 – 64 Simon Colin Murray Rachel Riley Ellie Simmonds Susie Dent 123

External links

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