Ben Wilson

Ben Wilson Octochamp Statistics
Final position	Champion
Seeding	1
Points total	570 (from 6 games)
Conundrums solved	5 (out of 6)

Ben Wilson in Championship of Champions XI...

...and 10 years later in the 30th Birthday Championship!

Ben Wilson organising a COLIN event.

Ben Wilson (born 22 March 1983) was the champion of Series 46, the first in the 15 round format. He was also a quarter-finalist in Championship of Champions XI and a participant in the 30th Birthday Championship. He is an Apterite and a moderator on c4countdown, and is most notable for launching the first ever Co-event: COLIN (Countdown in Lincoln), in 2005.

Appearances on the show

Heat games

His first programme was broadcast on 6 November 2001. He defeated namesake Peter Wilson 101 – 70 in his first show, before winning five more games (only six wins were needed in the first 15-round series) and becoming one of only five viscounts in Countdown history, famously declaring SEXPOT.

Finals

He returned for the series finals as No. 1 seed, beating fellow Lincoln resident Simon Cartwright 83 – 68 in the quarter-finals, and Scotland's Paul Ryan 101 – 80 in the semi-finals after a close and tense game. In the grand final on Christmas Day against Steve Sandalls, the scores were level until Round 9, but Ben built up a lead of 17 points over the next two rounds with an excellent six-small numbers game, and the word BONNIES. A series of poor rounds, including offering MACE for four, missing GYRATED and making a mistake on the final numbers game put Wilson one point behind going into the conundrum, but, he was able to solve the conundrum in five seconds to become champion of the 46th series, and the first champion of the 15 round format. Aged just 18 at the time, Ben also has the distinction of being the first ever series champion of Countdown to have been born after the show's debut on Channel 4.

Championship of Champions XI

Wilson was invited back for Championship of Champions XI in January 2003, where he was paired against Northern Ireland's Geraldine Hylands in the first round. Wilson scraped through, winning 94 – 91, but was ultimately beaten in the quarter-finals of the tournament by Tom Hargreaves, by a score of 131 – 98. At the time, this game set the record for highest aggregate score in a 15-round game (229), and 98 still remains one of the highest losing score of all time. The aggregate record was not broken until the following Championship of Champions tournament when Mark Tournoff beat Matthew Shore by 124 – 117. His own record of his experience on the show can be read on The Countdown Page here.

In the audience

Wilson would later have a brief cameo on the show at the end of the first semi-final of Series 50 between Chris Cummins and Adam Laws as the member of the audience who solved the conundrum after neither player was able to unscramble it.

30th Birthday Championship

He returned to Countdown in 2013, as one of 41 contestants taking part in the 30th Birthday Championship. He faced a tough draw in the preliminary round, facing history-making Series 54 champion Conor Travers. In the match, Wilson took a six-point lead with STOTTY in the second round, but quickly lost his lead to Travers' play of FLORUITED, and lost by a score of 117 – 91. Travers went on to win the championship.

After Countdown

Since his appearances on Countdown, Wilson has gone on to become deeply involved in the world of online Countdown, being amongst the first to play Countdown over MSN Messenger, organising COOT 3, and one of the original moderators of c4countdown.

Wilson is the organiser of COLIN, the first annual Co-event (in 2011, he played in his own tournament), as well as the several CONOT events. He also visited the Edinburgh Countdown Club in late 2003, CoBris 2005, CoBris 2007, CoLei 2008, CoLei2, Co:Lon 2010, the CoLei Summer Special, Co:Lon 2011, CobliviLon and COEDI, and was the winner of the first ever CoRed tournament in March 2007.

Away from Countdown, Wilson took up Scrabble after his penultimate Countdown appearance and won his first tournament, Peterborough, in March 2008. He has not played a Scrabble tournament since 2012.

In 2019, Wilson took over from Stewart Holden as the compiler of the Countdown Desk Calendar.

Preceded by John Rawnsley

Series winner Series 46

Followed by Chris Wills

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
3117	06/11/2001	P	Peter Wilson	70 – 101	Ben Wilson	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Vanessa Feltz	Clare Pemberton	114
3118	07/11/2001	P	Ben Wilson	102 – 49	Jeanette Littlejohn	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Vanessa Feltz	Clare Pemberton	152
3119	08/11/2001	P	Ben Wilson	98 – 60	Bob Bride	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Vanessa Feltz	Clare Pemberton	121
3120	09/11/2001	P	Ben Wilson	90 – 80	Mike Nicholson	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Vanessa Feltz	Clare Pemberton	130
3121	12/11/2001	P	Ben Wilson	86 – 72	Pearl Norman	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Nigel Rees	Phiona Stanley	122
3122	13/11/2001	P	Ben Wilson	93 – 76	John Hadley	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Nigel Rees	Phiona Stanley	123
3146	17/12/2001	QF	Ben Wilson	83 – 68	Simon Cartwright	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Denis Norden	Tania Styles	122
3150	21/12/2001	SF	Paul Ryan	80 – 101	Ben Wilson	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Denis Norden	Tania Styles	131
3152	25/12/2001	GF	Steve Sandalls	75 – 84	Ben Wilson	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Geoffrey Durham	Clare Pemberton	117
3394	10/01/2003	CP	Ben Wilson	94 – 91	Geraldine Hylands	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Martin Jarvis	Susie Dent	122
3400	20/01/2003	CQF	Tom Hargreaves	131 – 98	Ben Wilson	Richard Whiteley	Carol Vorderman				Lucy Summers	Eric Knowles	Susie Dent	144
5618	10/01/2013	30BP	Ben Wilson	91 – 117	Conor Travers	Nick Hewer	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Dave Myers	Susie Dent	126

External Links

• Archive version of Neb's Countdown site V3