Tom Stevenson

Tom Stevenson octochamp statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	1
Points total	1,000
Conundrums solved	8

Tom Stevenson in Series 86.

Tom Stevenson holding the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy, after winning Series 86.

Tom Stevenson was an octochamp in and the champion of Series 86, and a participant in Championship of Champions XVI. He is from Burford, Shropshire. He is the first series champion that was born in the 21st century. He was a media, culture and English literature student at the University of Worcester at the time of his appearances. He is also an Apterite who was formerly under the names of Spike Guthrie and Spike Nard, and has reached the Top 10 in the Apterous Pro Rank leaderboard.

On-screen

Heat games

Stevenson debuted the episode after Alan Young became an octochamp, kicking off with a hefty 120 points against Mike Oliver.

In his fourth episode, he scored a max game and broke the record for the highest score on the show with 154 that surpassed Elliott Mellor's three-year-old record by two points.

In his eighth episode, Stevenson won with 124 points that brought his octotal to a neat 1,000 and also became only the thirteenth person to solve all eight conundrums in their preliminary matches.

Amazingly, he became the first contestant to never lose a single round in the heats as well as the first to never score zero points in a single round in the heats. For those reasons, his octorun is considered to be one of the most consistent in Countdown history. He also became the fourth member of the 1,000 club after Mellor, Luke Johnson-Davies and Luke Boynton.

Following Alan Young, he was the second of two octochamps crowned during Colin Murray's tenure as temporary presenter.

Finals

In his quarter-final against Lewis Castling-Morey, Stevenson started off strongly by scoring 121 points. He also continued to maintain his unmatched record of scoring in every round.

In his semi-final, Joe Dobinson proved to be no walkover as he matched Stevenson in the early rounds before Stevenson eventually carved out a 24-point lead. With Rounds 10 to 14 being maxed out by Stevenson and Dobinson especially when both players found WINTEROUS, Stevenson officially maintained his unbeaten record before the final round was played. He finished the game with a flourish by solving his tenth conundrum from ten to qualify for the grand final with 129 points, and he also kept up his masterful scoring streak by making it 150 unbeaten rounds in a row as of the end of this match. In addition, Dobinson's score of 95 turned out to be the highest from any of Stevenson's 2022 opponents.

Grand final

In the grand final against Edward Byrne, both players started level until Stevenson eventually broke away with word spots like RODENTIAL and ABSENCE to establish a sizeable 33-point lead. However, Byrne finally became the first contestant to beat Stevenson in a round by spotting IDEOGRAPH to put himself back within striking distance. But Stevenson held his nerve and confirmed his victory after a difficult final numbers round target that was missed by both players.

He capped off his triumph with an unprecedented eleventh conundrum from eleven by unscrambling UNIMOSAIC to MINACIOUS in which he thought he made up, to claim the series win with his eleventh century and lifted the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy. Stevenson amassed an overall total of 1,366 points – the then second-highest xicount total of all time, only behind Luke Johnson-Davies.

Honorary achievement

Due to his achievements from his octorun, Stevenson was anointed as "The History Maker" by Colin Murray during his finals run. And because of that, it eventually gave Murray the idea to give nicknames to octochamps from Series 87 to 94 during his tenure as full-time presenter.

Championship of Champions XVI

Stevenson returned in January 2023 for Championship of Champions XVI.

Fellow unbeaten xicount, Adam Latchford, lay waiting for him. In Stevenson's toughest game yet, he quickly fell behind with thanks in part to an amazing numbers round solve of four large from Latchford but Stevenson eventually took the lead after spotting SLANGIEST and Latchford's Round 13 gamble backfired. This lead to the crucial conundrum of BETHECTOR as Latchford buzzed in first with the correct answer of BROCHETTE, meaning that Stevenson suffered his only defeat on the show – this also lead to the end of his unique 100% conundrum record as well.

Outside Countdown

In 2020, Stevenson was a contestant on the BBC Radio 2 music quiz PopMaster where he won a Bluetooth speaker. He was on PopMaster for a second time in 2023, winning the "One Year Out" t-shirt.

In 2024, he made an appearance on Pointless with his mother Ali.

ZoomDown

Prior to his appearances on Countdown, Stevenson participated in ZoomDown Series 1 where he lost his first game to Dinos Sfyris on a crucial conundrum.

He then appeared in Series 2, this time just squeezing into the finals as the No. 8 seed with two wins and 349 points. He lost his quarter-final against the No. 1 seed and eventual winner, Rob Foster, on a crucial conundrum.

He returned in Series 5 towards the end of the heats and kicked off with a century against Phil Stanton to deny the latter of tetrachampdom, but lost his next game to Ahmed Mohamed.

Preceded by Dan Byrom

Series winner Series 86

Followed by Ronan Higginson

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
7857	26/09/2022	P	Mike Oliver	58 – 120	Tom Stevenson	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Eve Muirhead	Susie Dent	136
7858	27/09/2022	P	Tom Stevenson	120 – 61	Sean Mowat	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Eve Muirhead	Susie Dent	135
7859	28/09/2022	P	Tom Stevenson	119 – 10	Sara Woolridge	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Eve Muirhead	Susie Dent	124
7860	29/09/2022	P	Tom Stevenson	154 – 28	Lauren Bowley	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Eve Muirhead	Susie Dent	154
7861	30/09/2022	P	Tom Stevenson	117 – 39	Andy Keeble	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Eve Muirhead	Susie Dent	145
7862	03/10/2022	P	Tom Stevenson	117 – 37	Steve Robinson	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pat Nevin	Susie Dent	122
7863	04/10/2022	P	Tom Stevenson	129 – 57	David Clerkin	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pat Nevin	Susie Dent	135
7864	05/10/2022	P	Tom Stevenson	124 – 41	Ben Timi Nuga	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Pat Nevin	Susie Dent	139
7915	15/12/2022	QF	Tom Stevenson	121 – 44	Lewis Castling-Morey	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Vick Hope	Susie Dent	125
7919	21/12/2022	SF	Tom Stevenson	129 – 95	Joe Dobinson	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Neil Delamere	Susie Dent	135
7921	23/12/2022	GF	Tom Stevenson	116 – 91	Edward Byrne	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Neil Delamere	Susie Dent	145
7926	06/01/2023	CP	Tom Stevenson	95 – 97	Adam Latchford	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Richard Osman	Susie Dent	136

External links

• Article on Stevenson's achievement.