Dan McColm

Dan McColm octochamp statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	1
Points total	942
Conundrums solved	6

Dan McColm in Series 64...

...and again in Championship of Champions XIV.

Dan McColm holding the Richard Whiteley Memorial Trophy.

Dan McColm was a contestant in Series 64, an octochamp in and the series champion of Series 71, and the runner-up of Championship of Champions XIV. He was originally from Kineton, Warwickshire. As of his 2011 appearance, he was a Modern Languages undergraduate at the University of Durham. As of his 2014 appearances, he was doing a masters degree in Linguistics and English Language at the University of Edinburgh. And as of when his CoC appearances were broadcast, he was studying for a PhD at Edinburgh again. He is also an Apterite and a member of C4Countdown.

Appearances on the programme

Heat games

McColm's Countdown career began in February 2011 where he was defeated in a close contest against future quarter-finalist, Ned Pendleton. But this wasn't a bad thing as he was allowed to return less than four years later, leaving his mark as one of the greatest octoruns in the show's entire history.

McColm's incredible octorun started off with a relatively close game against primary school teacher, Gary Mehaffy, from Nixon's Corner. McColm started off by finding SULCATE to give him a seven-point lead. But a tough battle between the two and McColm offering the invalid word of annatos ☓ saw Mehaffy equalise in Round 7. Despite the close first half, the game was pretty one-sided from this point on with McColm ending his mighty return with an impressive thirteen maxes and 113 points. He then went on to win a further seven games, including six more centuries and – for the first time ever – a run of three consecutive scores above 125 with impressive word spots like NANOTUBE, TERATOMA, PERORATE and INAMORATO. McColm also took advantage of this for being the first ODO-dictionary series by offering modern words such as WHATEV and solving the conundrum of PHOTOBOMB in just a second. McColm's score of 137 in his sixth game is the highest ever for a game with only one nine-letter word available, and this along with his four overall nines and impeccable numbers and conundrum performance landed McColm with a cumulative octotal of 942.

Finals

After defeating Paul Worsley in the quarter-finals, he then defeated George Ford in the semi-final with a max game. McColm then went on to face Antoinette Ryan. In a close contest in which McColm dropped behind for the first time by two points after Round 6, McColm steamrolled to victory and became series champion after solving the conundrum of LETHALITY in just four seconds.

Championship of Champions XIV

Cool Dan (as he became as known on the show) returned in 2016 for Championship of Champions XIV where his first opponent was Series 67 champion, Paul James. McColm won the match by 106 – 69, after solving the conundrum of TOMBOYISH in a second. Another series winner laid waiting in the quarter-finals for him which was Series 70 champion, Mark Murray. In a very tense battle of "Yearly champion 2014", McColm won the match by 112 – 99 to set up a semi-final match against Jen Steadman. In a thrilling match, the then spot of ROSMARINE proved crucial for McColm who went on to eventually win the match by 125 – 117. In the grand final against Series 69 runner-up Dylan Taylor and after finding himself 25 points behind after six rounds, McColm pegged him back with thanks to the then spot of METACONID. He remained seven points apart (notably with McColm spotting ROSMARINE for a second time) up until the crucial conundrum where after 1.5 seconds, Taylor unravelled NICETASTY to become the fourteenth Champion of Champions winner.

Co-events

McColm made his Co-event debut at COLIN 2012, before finishing as the runner-up at both CO:REA in April and COHUD in June of the same year. He eventually won his first Co-event at Leeds in 2018, beating Zarte Siempre in the final.

Preceded by Mark Murray

Series winner Series 71

Followed by Tom Cappleman

Preceded by Charlie Reams

Champion of Champions runner-up Championship of Champions XIV

Followed by Bradley Horrocks

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
5212	24/02/2011	P	Ned Pendleton	89 – 66	Dan McColm	Jeff Stelling	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Mark Foster	Susie Dent	118
6007	8/10/2014	P	Gary Mehaffy	70 – 113	Dan McColm	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Tony Jacklin	Susie Dent	131
6008	9/10/2014	P	Dan McColm	92 – 70	Ben Hodgson	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Tony Jacklin	Susie Dent	127
6009	10/10/2014	P	Dan McColm	112 – 37	Daisy Stemple	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Tony Jacklin	Susie Dent	119
6010	13/10/2014	P	Dan McColm	116 – 47	John Vivian	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Richard Arnold	Susie Dent	128
6011	14/10/2014	P	Dan McColm	129 – 58	Samantha Cooper	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Richard Arnold	Susie Dent	131
6012	15/10/2014	P	Dan McColm	137 – 53	Harry Jarrett	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Richard Arnold	Susie Dent	139
6013	16/10/2014	P	Dan McColm	126 – 44	Antony Aston	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Richard Arnold	Susie Dent	130
6014	20/10/2014	P	Dan McColm	117 – 51	Stephen Whieldon	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Richard Arnold	Susie Dent	121
6050	10/12/2014	QF	Dan McColm	109 – 60	Paul Worsley	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Arlene Phillips	Susie Dent	121
6054	17/12/2014	SF	Dan McColm	123 – 77	George Ford	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	David Baddiel	Susie Dent	123
6056	19/12/2014	GF	Dan McColm	117 – 87	Antoinette Ryan	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	David Baddiel	Susie Dent	129
6284	12/01/2016	CP	Dan McColm	106 – 69	Paul James	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	John Inverdale	Susie Dent	122
6289	19/01/2016	CQF	Dan McColm	112 – 99	Mark Murray	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Naga Munchetty	Susie Dent	145
6291	21/01/2016	CSF	Jen Steadman	117 – 125	Dan McColm	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Naga Munchetty	Susie Dent	146
6292	22/01/2016	CGF	Dylan Taylor	121 – 104	Dan McColm	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Naga Munchetty	Susie Dent	154