Jonathan Wynn

Jonathan Wynn octochamp statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	2
Points total	922
Conundrums solved	6

Jonathan Wynn in Series 63...

...and five years later in Series 73.

And again in the Championship of Champions XV.

Jonathan Wynn holding the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy after winning Series 73.

Jonathan Wynn was a contestant in Series 63, an octochamp in and the champion of Series 73 and a quarter-finalist in Championship of Champions XV. As of his first appearance, he was a maths supply teacher from Kenilworth, Warwickshire. As of his Series 73 appearances, he was a maths teacher from Oxford. As of his Championship of Champions appearances, he was still working as a teacher, now based in Brighton. He has also been an Apterite since 2009, and is a regular Co-event player.

Appearances on the programme

Heat games

In his first show, Wynn showed some strong word knowledge but lost on the crucial conundrum WINTERNUT. He returned to the programme ten series later, and after more practice on Apterous, he carded a century in all eight of his heat wins. He ended up ranked number two seed for the finals, with his cumulative score of 922 being one short of Thomas Carey’s 923. However, Carey suffered defeat in his semi-final.

Finals

Wynn is notable as the first octochamp to have always been ahead of his opponent in all 120 rounds of his run. He continued this pattern into the finals, having a higher score than his quarter-final opponent, six-time winner, Liam Moloney, at every juncture (although Wynn failed to attain a century there). This record only ended in his semi-final, in which both he and Stephen Briggs scored in the first round – nonetheless, in this game, Wynn would go on to achieve his highest total score so far, and was denied the new 15-round record score on a wrong answer to the conundrum LIDLTENSE.

The next day, Wynn faced the numbers whizz Matthew Tassier in the grand final. After Tassier could only come up with the invalid waiged ☓ in Round 4, he turned it round with his specialist six-small choice in Round 6 to take a four-point lead over Wynn. Wynn later regained the lead with REQUIEM in Round 12 and SALMONID (beating Tassier’s disallowed offering of mondials ☓) in Round 13, but Tassier’s six-small pick beat Wynn again, forcing a crucial conundrum. However, neither player could unravel TTHESCORE, giving Wynn the win and the championship after a close "letters vs numbers" nail-biter.

Championship of Champions XV

Wynn returned to Countdown in January 2019 for Championship of Champions XV, where he took on Series 78 semi-finalist, Phil Davies, in the first preliminary round of the tournament. Despite the game's fairly low maximum score, Wynn amassed a century here, achieving maximum points in all but one of the letters rounds (missing only the word FOOTSURE, which he did have noted) to take the game 103 – 68. He then played Philip Aston in the quarter-finals, where – largely due to a very obscure but misspelled nine-letter word – he suffered his only defeat since his original one to Ryan Loughborough.

Co-events

He made his Co-event debut at CO:REA 2013, placing 14th out of 34. Wynn competed in the 2018 FOCAL finals as the number six seed, and finished in second place in the heats, winning five out of seven games. This was followed by a victory over his opponent in the grand final, Tom Cappleman, and therefore he become the 2018 FOCAL finals champion. In 2020, he won COLIN XVI.

ZoomDown

After his Countdown appearances, he participated on ZoomDown in Series 1 (becoming the runner-up to Conor Travers in the grand final), Series 3 and the Championship of Champions.

Preceded by Tom Cappleman

Series winner Series 73

Followed by Paul Erdunast

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
5072	01/07/2010	P	Ryan Loughborough	77 – 74	Jonathan Wynn	Jeff Stelling	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Tim Vine	Susie Dent	132
6194	24/08/2015	P	Chris Roy	30 – 100	Jonathan Wynn	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Gyles Brandreth	Susie Dent	136
6195	25/08/2015	P	Jonathan Wynn	107 – 46	Mark Ainsley	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Gyles Brandreth	Susie Dent	123
6196	26/08/2015	P	Jonathan Wynn	111 – 55	Steve Heeney	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Gyles Brandreth	Susie Dent	124
6197	27/08/2015	P	Jonathan Wynn	119 – 49	Will Irvine	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Greg Rusedski	Susie Dent	122
6198	28/08/2015	P	Jonathan Wynn	112 – 79	Daniel Morris	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Greg Rusedski	Susie Dent	132
6199	31/08/2015	P	Jonathan Wynn	131 – 55	Paul Curtayne	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Greg Rusedski	Susie Dent	134
6200	01/09/2015	P	Jonathan Wynn	113 – 65	David Vernon	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Greg Rusedski	Susie Dent	134
6201	02/09/2015	P	Jonathan Wynn	129 – 33	Hannah Short	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Greg Rusedski	Susie Dent	132
6272	16/12/2015	QF	Jonathan Wynn	90 – 84	Liam Moloney	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	David Baddiel	Susie Dent	122
6276	22/12/2015	SF	Jonathan Wynn	134 – 100	Stephen Briggs	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Tim Rice	Susie Dent	157
6277	23/12/2015	GF	Jonathan Wynn	98 – 94	Matthew Tassier	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Tim Rice	Susie Dent	130
6980	02/01/2019	CP	Jonathan Wynn	103 – 68	Phil Davies	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Kate Humble	Susie Dent	116
6988	14/01/2019	CQF	Jonathan Wynn	92 – 110	Philip Aston	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Dr Linda Papadopoulos	Susie Dent	132

External Links

• Article on Wynn and his Series 73 victory, Oxford Mail