Final Jeopardy: The 2000 Olympics (5-4-20)
Today’s Final Jeopardy question (5/4/2020) in the category “The 2000 Olympics” was:
She’s the first female track & field athlete to win medals in 5 different events at a single Olympics
Today, we are watching Ken Jennings’ first game (original airdate: 6/2/2004). The players: 2x champ Jerry Harvey, a freelance educator from California, MO (originally – remember when they used to do that?). Jerry was up to $70,002 in winnings; Ken Jennings, a software engineer from Salt Lake City, UT; and Julia Lazarus, a fundraiser from New York, NY.
Round 1 Categories: Biography Subtitles – Let’s Clean Up – Pardon Me – Quotable Recent Movies – Play Time -“Epi”sodes
Jerry found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Biography Subtitles” under the $800 clue on the 10th pick of the round. He was in second place with $1,800, $800 less than Ken’s lead. He bet $1,800 and thought it was Woolworth. That was WRONG.
An entrepreneur: “Bargain Billionaire”. show
Ken finished in the lead with $8,000. Julia was second with $4,800 and Jerry was last with $1,800.
Round 2 Categories: “H” Names – Actresses & Playwrights – Vocabulary – Senatorial Successors – Country Time – Lemon Aid
Ken found the first Daily Double in “Vocabulary” under the $1,600 clue on the 4th pick. He was in the lead with $10,000, $4,800 more than Julia in second place. He bet $2,000 and he was RIGHT.
Prefab metal sheets used to print newspapers gave us this term for standard wording, as in contracts. show
4 clues later, Julia got the last Daily Double in “Actresses & Playwrights” under the $1,200 clue. In second place with $6,000, she had $8,000 less than Ken’s lead. She bet $5,000 and she was RIGHT.
Chapter One of her life with Neil Simon began in 1973, when she was cast in his play “The Good Doctor” show
Ken finished in the lead with $20,000. Julia was next with $18,600 and Jerry was in third place with $7,400.
TWO of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.
WHO IS MARION JONES?
Marion Jones famously won three gold medals and two bronze medals at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. Look at her go in the video! In 2007, three years after this game, Jones was infamously stripped of those medals after admitting to steroid use. She served about 6 months in prison for the deception.
Wikipedia has a list of all athletes who have been stripped of Olympic medals.
Jerry got it right with the full name. He bet $1.00 and finished with $7,401.
Julia wrote down “Gail.” That cost her $3,799 and left her with $14,801.
Ken wrote down “Jones” and that was accepted with Alex saying “and we will accept that. In terms of female athletes, there aren’t that many.” He bet $17,201 and won the game with $37,201. That made Ken Jennings the new Jeopardy! champ on 6/2/2004 and began a legendary run that would continue until 11/30/2004. Jeopardy! will rerun that last episode on Friday, 5/15/20.
A triple stumper from each round (the only ones in the whole game):
PLAY TIME ($800) A Parcheesi player begins with 4 pieces & can move a maximum of this many of them on one roll of the dice
COUNTRY TIME ($1200) In April 1939 this country absorbed Albania
2 years ago: NONE of the players got this FJ in “U.S. Cities”
This city, also the title of a film that won 2 Oscars, was named for a businessman known for 19th century transportation. show
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Imagine if Ken’s answer of “Jones” was deemed insufficient (such as presidents when the correct response is “Roosevelt”, but which one?). The legend would never have materialized, or even started for that matter.
On 2nd thought, only one Jones could have satisfied this clue.
Wow, this game was from a long time ago and I didn’t even join fikkle fame at that time and I didn’t even know that you had opened this site up VJ. Anyway though, Wasn’t sam Walton the founder of Sam’s Club and Walmart and made them the most successful stores across america back then? It’s sad that the one that I went to in New Jersey was out of business, this was along US 18 in New Brunswick at that time.
The olympics should actually screen the participants carefully to make sure they are not using drugs or doing any dope dealing because that is an automatic disqualification. Do you remember Lance Armstrong? He was also found guilty of dope dealing and he wasn’t allowed back into the olympic games. He returned the bronze medal afterwards.
@Lou, I was not watching Jeopardy! when this game first aired because I couldn’t remember what time it came on so this was the first time I saw this episode and this site did not exist in 2004.