A Calgary Olympian is trading in the bobsled track for a shot at trivia glory on one of television’s most iconic game shows.
Cynthia Appiah, a member of Canada’s Olympic bobsleigh team and a longtime trivia enthusiast, is set to appear on Jeopardy! after eight years of trying to land a spot on the show.
“When I got the email I was literally frozen in my tracks,” Appiah told Global News in an interview. “I was just like, is this for real?”
Canadian bobsledder and trivia enthusiast Cynthia Appiah has achieved a lifelong dream — appearing on the TV show “Jeopardy.” Appiah, right, is seen in this handout photo with host Ken Jennings.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout — Cynthia Appiah
Appiah, a Toronto native who grew up watching the show nightly with her family, filmed her episode earlier this year in Los Angeles — right in the middle of a bobsleigh training week.
She said her experience in high-performance sport helped prepare her mentally for the intense taping environment.
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“There’s a bit of a fighter spirit in me that it’s not over until it’s over,” she said.
“Like bobsleigh, you can make a mistake in a corner and you can’t dwell on that because you’ve got the next corner coming up. And much like my episode, I did get some questions wrong, and I couldn’t dwell on that because I had to get ready for the next question to come up.”
While the 35-year-old said she can’t reveal how she performed until the episode airs on Oct. 28, she says she plans to watch it with her teammates while training in Whistler as she continues her push to qualify for the upcoming Olympic Games.
Her family will be cheering her on at watch parties across the country.
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Calgary Olympian takes competitive spirit from bobsled track to Jeopardy! stage
