Jon O'Neill

Jon O'Neill Octochamp Statistics
Final position	Semi-finalist
Seeding	3
Points total	804
Conundrums solved	6

Jon O'Neill in Series 53...

...and again under eight years later in the 30th Birthday Championship!

Carol marvels at another of the ginger genius's outrageous solutions.

Jon O'Neill was an octochamp in Series 53, a participant in Championship of Champions XII and a semi-finalist in the 30th Birthday Championship. He is also an Apterite.

Appearances on the programme

Series 53

He started off with a narrow 20 point win over Steve Smith before scoring 96 against Peter Wallis. All of his next 5 games were centuries including a high score of 114 against Theresa Turrell. In his final game, he dropped to 94, but still qualified for the finals as No. 3 seed with 804 points.

Finals

In the quarter-finals, he played Judith Young in a close game. The game hinged on O'Neill making 209 from 75, 100, 25, 6, 10, 50, which involved him doing 50 × 100 + 75 to make 5075 before coming back down again (although it can also be solved by doing 100 + 75 + 50 − 10 − 6). Though Young beat him with SEARCHED in round 12, O'Neill won by a score of 90 – 74, where failing to unravel the conundrum IRONCASTS separated him from a score of 100.

In the semi-final, he faced John Mayhew, the No. 2 seed with 811 points. O'Neill led by 7 points going into round 13, where he was beaten by THEOREMS and trailed by 1 point going into his choice of numbers. Controversially, he didn't choose 4 large and went for just 1 large number. Both players scored 10 points and the lights were dimmed for a crucial conundrum (EROGENICC), but neither player could solve it and Mayhew won the game by a solitary point. It was the second conundrum of French origin in a row that O'Neill had failed to solve.

Shortly after this, he was apparently spotted by Wayne Mardle, who misspelt O'Neill's name in the former's autobiography.

Championship of Champions XII

One year later, O'Neill was invited back to the Championship of Champions XII, and faced Series 52 octochamp Jack Welsby. O'Neill started badly, missing AMOEBAS. O'Neill couldn't beat Welsby in any letters rounds, and uncharacteristically was beaten by Carol in both choices of 4 large numbers. O'Neill did get the conundrum FAYRPOINT but it was Welsby that won the game by just 5 points.

30th Birthday Championship

O'Neill returned to Countdown in 2013, as one of 41 contestants taking part in the 30th Birthday Championship. He received a bye to the first round, and won his first game against Series 59 semi-finalist Kai Laddiman by a score of 101 – 76. O'Neill then beat Series 6 champion Darryl Francis in his second game, scoring a personal best of 122 in the process. He then equalled his personal best in his quarter-final against the Series 66 champion Jack Worsley, and in the process, he achieved a max game, becoming only the third person in the history of the 15 round format to achieve this feat. In the semi-final, he played the formidable Series 54 champion Conor Travers. He managed to hold Travers for nearly every round, but his gamble of sulphated ☓ in round 6 backfired, and Travers solved the conundrum FINEGIRTH in one second to achieve an unprecedented third consecutive max game. O'Neill’s semi-final spots make him among the strongest players to never win a series.

Catsdown

On 19 September 2014, he was a special guest on 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown Series 5, Episode 3. Jon joined Sean Lock and Jo Brand's team. Unfortunately, he missed a numbers target to Jon Richardson, saying it was hard to concentrate, but did redeem himself by solving the conundrum SNOGAMILF in under a second.

Co-events

Since appearing on Countdown, O'Neill has played at a number of unofficial Countdown tournaments, including COLIN 2005, CoBris 2005, COLIN 2006, CoBris 2006, COLIN 2007, CoNot 2008, CoNot 2009, COLIN 2010, Co:Lon 2010, COLIN 2011, CoNot 2011, Co:Lon 2011, CobliviLon and COEDI. He achieved 3rd place at CoBris 2007, 2nd place at COLIN 2008 and COLIN 2009, before winning his first event CoLei2 later in 2009. In 2008, he also appeared in the Countdown Online Masters via MSN Messenger, and lost 100 – 99 to Series 47 champion Chris Wills in the quarter-final.

In 2009, he became the first moderator of the Off-topic sub-forum on c4countdown.

His attendance (and of course, victory) at CoLei2 2009 has caused one c4c forum member to confess to another to have considered him to be the 'most attractive man in the room', a quality not diminished by Jon later putting an empty 'Celebrations' tin on his head. He has a face capable of carrying off such a jaunty appendage.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
3898	1/04/2005	P	Steve Smith	67 – 87	Jon O'Neill	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Mitch Murray	Susie Dent	143
3899	4/04/2005	P	Jon O'Neill	96 – 72	Peter Wallis	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Nicholas Owen	Susie Dent	120
3900	5/04/2005	P	Jon O'Neill	106 – 54	William Moore	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Nicholas Owen	Susie Dent	140
3901	6/04/2005	P	Jon O'Neill	102 – 46	Ola Odutola	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Nicholas Owen	Susie Dent	124
3902	7/04/2005	P	Jon O'Neill	101 – 61	Gill Johns	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Nicholas Owen	Susie Dent	133
3903	8/04/2005	P	Jon O'Neill	104 – 66	Phil Squires	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Nicholas Owen	Susie Dent	119
3904	11/04/2005	P	Jon O'Neill	114 – 43	Theresa Turrell	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Julia McKenzie	Susie Dent	132
3905	12/04/2005	P	Jon O'Neill	94 – 58	Gary McEnaney	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Julia McKenzie	Susie Dent	118
3955	28/06/2005	QF	Judith Young	74 – 90	Jon O'Neill	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Philip Franks	Susie Dent	121
3958	30/06/2005	SF	John Mayhew	89 – 88	Jon O'Neill	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Philip Franks	Susie Dent	117
4116	1/06/2006	CP	Jack Welsby	99 – 94	Jon O'Neill	Des Lynam	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Ron Atkinson	Susie Dent	134
5625	21/01/2013	30B1	Kai Laddiman	76 – 101	Jon O'Neill	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Margaret Mountford	Susie Dent	132
5641	12/02/2013	30B2	Jon O'Neill	122 – 91	Darryl Francis	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Ken Bruce	Susie Dent	130
5649	22/02/2013	30BQF	Jon O'Neill	122 – 104	Jack Worsley	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Dr Phil Hammond	Susie Dent	122
5653	28/02/2013	30BSF	Jon O'Neill	102 – 120	Conor Travers	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Jenny Eclair	Susie Dent	120
Cats26	19/09/2014	S	Jon O'Neill, Jo Brand & Sean Lock	52 – 24	Jon Richardson, Vic Reeves & Rob Beckett	Jimmy Carr	Rachel Riley					Adam Buxton	Susie Dent	69

External Link

• Jon O'Neill's Countdown experience on The Countdown Page.