Arlington resident Roey Hadar, a 23-year-old journalist at WETA-TV in Shirlington, is a Jeopardy champion.
During last night’s episode of the long-running quiz show, which was originally taped in March, Hadar topped five-time champion Sam Kavanaugh, a teacher from Minneapolis, and Jennifer Abel, a graduate student from Vancouver, British Columbia. Hadar walked away with $23,600 in daily winnings, having correctly answered two pivotal Daily Double questions.
Hadar will defend his title on tonight’s episode, facing a teacher from Seattle and a professor from Los Angeles. Jeopardy airs locally at 7:30 p.m. on WJLA (ABC 7).
Hadar live-tweeted during the episode, offering behind-the-scene nuggets like the power outage that almost made him miss the bus to the studio and the quirky ground rules given to contestants before the taping (no wagering $666 or $69). He also revealed that he is still together with his girlfriend, despite host Alex Trebek opining on air that he should “dump her.”
This is not the first time an Arlington resident found success on Jeopardy. Social worker Blair Moorhead notched a victory on an episode that aired in early 2017, while foreign service officer Liz Murphy advanced in the show’s Tournament of Champions following her initial win.
Hadar, a Ballston resident, says he will again be live-tweeting tonight’s episode, offering another interesting show fact: contestants do not receive their prize money until after the episode airs.
Side story here: you may be wondering what somebody does after realizing they've won a possibly life-changing sum (FYI the $ doesn't come until after air.)
After taping wrapped, I was hungry. The only thing near my hotel was a mall, so I decided to splurge on… Panda Express!
— Roey Hadar (@roeyhadar) July 18, 2019