Nonbinary Contestant Rowan Ward in Jeopardy! Second Chance Tourney
Wednesday’s semifinal round of the Second Chance Tournament on Jeopardy! will feature nonbinary contestant Rowan Ward.Ward competed last year against Matt Amodio, one of the top champions of the 2021-2022 season.
The Second Chance Tournament, which began airing last week and continues through Friday, gives Ward and others who lost to big winners like Amodio, Amy Schneider, and Mattea Roach the opportunity to claim a berth in the Tournament of Champions, which begins airing Monday and brings together all the leading champs of the season.Ward, a sportswriter specializing in horse racing, didn’t come out as nonbinary until after their first Jeopardy!
appearance, so they competed under the name they used before coming out. “It felt like the right decision at the time, but then when it aired, I was very excited that it happened,” Ward recently told NPR. “But I was also kind of sad because I know that this name isn’t long for the world, but it's going to follow me around in this context forever because I was on Jeopardy!
under it. And to get a second chance to play Jeopardy! as Rowan Ward means everything to me.”They won fans on the show “for their eccentric personality and their odd line of work,” NPR notes.
