Ronan Higginson

Ronan Higginson Octochamp Statistics
Final position	TBC
Seeding	TBC
Points total	1041
Conundrums solved	7

Ronan Higginson in Series 87.

Ronan Higginson was an octochamp in Series 87. At the time of his appearances, he was an A-Level Student from Ramsgate in Kent. He is also an Apterite who has reached No. 1 on the Apterous Pro Rank leaderboard.

Appearances on the programme

Series 86 Heats

Higginson made his heavily anticipated TV debut on 17 May 2023, against five-game winner Jonathan Seal. With both players having spotted two nine-letter words BATTERIES and REPOSTING Higginson won with a strong 132 points to Seal's still comparatively impressive 98 points. These two scores helped make the highest joint score in a heat game under the new 15 round format, a record unbeaten for nine-and-a-half years.

Ronan then rattled off seven more sublime performances, which were also all centuries, to become only the second octochamp of the series, which included further 9's such as NEOTERIST, ARAGONITE, RITUALITY, AMBROSIAN and ALPENROSE. Of particular note, in his fifth match, Higginson achieved only the thirteenth perfect game with 135 points being both the max and his score. This was the second time within a year this had occurred; Tom Stevenson's record-breaking performance in Episode 7860 being the last one. And, in his sixth game, he equalled Elliott Mellor's four-year-old record for the highest margin of victory in a game of Countdown when he defeated challenger Aaron Sutton by 133 points; this game also confirmed his qualification for the series finals and his joint-highest score of 143.

Ronan finished off his octorun and established himself as the almost certain No.1 seed, with a 13-round max performance against Richard Clingen. This game also marked the fourth time he had held an opponent to under 30 points and the fourth time he had won a game by over 100 points; the former being an all-time joint-record. He ultimately finished with 1,041 points and an average of just over 130 per game; this, along with making him the 31st member of the 900 club, also gave him the 2nd-highest octototal of all time in the 15 round format, with only Elliott Mellor having more points.

ZoomDown

Prior to appearing on the show, Higginson participated in episodes 81 and 82 of ZoomDown, triumphing against fellow Countdown alumni Philip Aston but losing to Tom Cappleman. He later appeared in ZoomDown Series 4, winning two games before losing on a crucial conundrum to Ahmed Mohamed. But after tetrachamp Adam Beach was unable to participate in the series finals, Higginson qualified for the finals as number 8 seed.

In the quarter-finals of ZoomDown Series 4, Higginson caused an upset when he defeated number 1 seed Brendan Whitehurst on a crucial conundrum, winning with 99 points to Whitehurst's 88. He then went on to beat number 5 seed Adam Dexter with 112 – 81, thus making a spot in the grand final against Rachael Montgomery. However, Rachael gained the lead when Ronan had coatage ☓ disallowed and also got to one away on the numbers round that followed, whereas Rachael got the target spot on. He did eventually claw back with COWRIES - forcing a crucial conundrum - but Ronan had buzzed incorrectly with scramload ☓ with only 0.8 seconds left, thus resulting in him taking the runner-up spot.

Despite this loss, his success in the series had him qualify for the ZoomDown Championship of Champions. He had been drawn to play against Conor Travers, and both had started pretty well in the first quarter of their game by maxing the first three rounds. However, two disallowed words and Conor's words like OSTEOID and APRONFUL helped him secure one of many 14 max games throughout the tournament. The scoreline was left 125 – 86 in Conor's favour, helping him progress onward to win the series.

Episodes

#	Date	Type	Contestant 1	Score	Contestant 2	Presenters				Guest	Lex	Max
8019	17/05/2023	P	Jonathan Seal	98 – 132	Ronan Higginson	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Annie MacManus	Susie Dent	143
8020	18/05/2023	P	Ronan Higginson	110 – 64	Brian Cookson	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Annie MacManus	Susie Dent	124
8021	19/05/2023	P	Ronan Higginson	126 – 12	Greg Raine	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Annie MacManus	Susie Dent	133
8022	22/05/2023	P	Ronan Higginson	130 – 50	John Waterhouse	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Vick Hope	Susie Dent	135
8023	23/05/2023	P	Ronan Higginson	135 – 27	Martin Peirce	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Vick Hope	Susie Dent	135
8024	24/05/2023	P	Ronan Higginson	143 – 10	Aaron Sutton	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Vick Hope	Susie Dent	166
8025	25/05/2023	P	Ronan Higginson	143 – 57	Andy Sheppard	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Vick Hope	Susie Dent	151
8026	26/05/2023	P	Ronan Higginson	122 – 17	Richard Clingen	Colin Murray	Rachel Riley				Lucy Summers	Cally Beaton	Susie Dent	124