DANGER! champion Drew Basile insisted his seven-day winning streak was halted due to fatigue – and fatigue alone.
Drew, 23, the first Survivor contestant to compete on the game show, made several bold claims in a new interview with EW.
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The Michigan-born graduate student lost on Friday, June 28, after racking up $129,601 and the second-longest streak of Season 40.
Drew’s last game was sloppy, ending negatively on Jeopardy! round.
The Survivor star came back with $9,600 after Double Jeopardy, but the final clue was his torch being snuffed out.
He bet $8,399 and the category was “Notable American Women.”
The clue was: “In her autobiography, she speaks of a ‘rather singular coincidence’: one of her Swiss ancestors was a teacher of the deaf.”
Drew visibly struggled and squirmed on the podium – he incorrectly guessed, “Gallaudet.” The correct answer was “Hellen Keller.”
Drew was defeated by Cat Pisacano, who beat him by over $10,000 and got it right, as did the third player, Andrew Fox.
Drew finished with just $1,201, while Cat’s final score was $11,500.
She was beaming when Ken Jennings declared her the new champion.
‘I DIDN’T REMEMBER THE NAME’
“Jeopardy! is exhausting,” said Drew EW the night his losing episode aired.
“At the end of the recording day I was exhausted. I had a terrible round of Single Jeopardy, making all kinds of mistakes,” he shared.
“The most surprising thing about Final Jeopardy is that I knew the answer,” he boldly stated.
“I knew it was Helen Keller and I was so exhausted I couldn’t remember her name.
“I was so tired I couldn’t remember Helen Keller’s name.
“It comes down to a little youth. This comes down to inexperience.
“And hopefully with a little more practice, this will be a correctable error.”
‘SHOCKED DREW LOST’
When her loss aired last week, fans were surprised that Drew lost track of Hellen Keller.
“Am I the only one who thought that final was the easiest question and was completely SHOCKED that Drew didn’t realize it?
“I’m not belittling his response or the stress of the situation. I was just shocked,” one fan wrote on Reddit at the time.
“I think our no longer champion thought a lot about many tracks. This was no more apparent than Final,” wrote another.
‘WEAK POINT’
Drew also revealed how he will prepare for the upcoming Tournament of Champions, admitting that Final Jeopardy – in which he got three out of eight – was a low point.
“I didn’t really pay enough attention to the structure of the Jeopardy clues, the grammar of Jeopardy, so Final Jeopardy was a weak spot,” he said.
“Coming back, I’m really going to spend a lot of time watching the show, paying attention to the way the Final Jeopardy clues are structured.
“It’s going to be a lot of flashcards, a lot of re-reading of old material, and I’m going to pick some star names, like, of course, James Holzhauer, Victoria, Yogesh, and study how they play and what they do, to take tips from that.
I’ll follow their tips.”
‘WEARING ON ME’
Drew isn’t the first player to lose steam in the past month due to Jeopardy! recording five episodes a day.
Adriana Harmeyer, who Drew defeated after a 15-day streak last month, also credited the loss to fatigue.
Both lost in the fifth game of a five-game day.
Drew compared himself to her: “You saw it with Adriana and you certainly saw it with me,” he told EW.
However, Adriana faced a much tougher situation than Drew in terms of scheduling the show.
Their last 13 games (or three days of tape) were in May, on three consecutive days, a huge rarity for the show.
“On the third day, I could feel it getting to me a little bit,” she shared on Inside Jeopardy! podcast.
“I just did my best to fight it off and keep going as best I could to focus on buzzer speed and keep remembering things. An unusual experience, I guess.”
‘WINNING DOLO’
Drew competed on Survivor Season 45 last year and is the first person on both shows.
He finished with the second longest streak of the season – behind only the champion he knocked out.
Drew’s subsequent victories made TV news, with his third victory coming via an ultra-rare shootout
His fourth win earned him 33 correct answers, a season high for any player.
That said, some fans criticized Drew for “showing off” during these victories.
He used to clap his hands, raise his fists and was also irritated by writing a joke as a final response when he knocked Adriana down.
“Someone please break your streak… Please. I was really hoping he wouldn’t make it to ToC,” one social media user wrote during his race.
“Can anyone see through his false humility? Waiting for a new winner,” wrote another user.
Drew and Adriana, who have had great streaks, can now have a rematch at the Tournament of Champions in 2025.
The other qualifiers for the upcoming Contest of Champions are five-day winners Alison Betts and Dr. Amy Hummel, and Celebrity Jeopardy!’s Lisa Ann Walter.
That said, with four wins, Grant DeYoung and Amar Kakirde will likely participate as well.
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This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
