Template:Featuredarticle

Graham Nash (born 25 December 1979) was an octochamp in and champion of Series 43, and winner of Championship of Champions XI. Nash made his Countdown debut on July 20 2000, defeating two-times winner and Edinburgh Countdown Club member Melanie Beaumont by 60 points to 49. He demonstrated consistent scoring to polish off seven further wins, including a high score of 72 points against Roger Robinson. With an eight game total of 465 points, Nash qualified for the series finals as number 2 seed. Herein, he narrowly overcame Gordon Cusworth and Clare Wright to set up a grand final against number 5 seed Matthew Turner. In a nip and tuck game, the penultimate numbers round proved decisive as it gave Nash a 10 point advantage. He was able to hold onto until the crucial conundrum ANEWREBEL, which he in turn solved, to become Countdown's forty-third series champion.

Nash returned in 2003 for Championship of Champions XI. Nash's first game of the tournament pitted him against Series 42 semi-finalist David Ballheimer; words including VINTAGES and MICROBES helped Nash to a comfortable 103–70 victory. Against the hotly-tipped Julian Fell, Nash had formica ☓ disallowed as it is listed in the dictionary as a proper noun. Fell returned the favour by having gambiers ☓ disallowed, giving Nash a one point advantage which he held until the conundrum. In less than two seconds, Nash unravelled MENDMEDOC to beat Fell by 11 points.

Nash defeated Series 47 finalist Tom Hargreaves in his semi-final to establish a grand final against Hargreaves' old adversary Chris Wills. Wills took the lead in round 4 with GAMBADE but Nash levelled the scores with PENSIVE. In round eight Wills had mistle ☓ disallowed, gifting Nash a six point lead which he held until a crucial conundrum. After 30 seconds, neither player had been able to unravel OVERSPADE which gave Nash a seemingly unlikely Championship of Champions victory. He has since appeared on other television shows including Brainteaser, Grand Slam and Divided. (more...)