The Final Jeopardy question (6/5/2013) in the category “Sporting Events” was:

An old name for this Olympic sporting event is the Quinquertium.

New champ, Rachel Gordon won $7,400 yesterday, in one of those wild FJ upsets. Today her competition will come from these two players: Kathy Nitschke from Greenbush, ME; and Jonathan Van Balen from Lexington, KY.

Rachel found the Jeopardy! round Daily Double in “Techology.” She was in the lead with $2,000, $800 more than Kathy in second place. She made it a true Daily Double and she was RIGHT.

To hide a warship’s engine noises, Prairie Masker technology on the ship creates waves of bubbles, an effective tactic for outwitting the passive type of this detection device. show

WHAT IS SONAR?

Rachel finished in the lead with $8,600. Jonathan was second with $3,600 and Kathy was last with $2,000.

Jonathan found the first Double Jeopardy Daily Double in “World ‘P’s.” He was in second place with $5,600, $3,400 less than Rachel’s lead. He bet $2,400 and he was RIGHT.

World Book says this “is a small country…that has worldwide importance as a transportation center” show

WHAT IS PANAMA?

Jonathan found the last Daily Double in “1880s America ” He was still in second place but with $8,800, he now was only $200 behind Rachel’s lead. He bet $1,200 and he was RIGHT.

This school that trained black students to become teachers opened on July 4, 1881 in Alabama. show

WHAT IS THE TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE?

Rachel finished in the lead with $9,000. Jonathan was next with $7,200 and Kathy was in third place with $400.

TWO of the contestants got Final Jeopardy! right.

WHAT IS THE PENTATHLON?

Here is a definition in an 1823 encyclopedia edited by John Wilkes that mentions the quinquertium: “Pentath’ lon, or Pentathlum… The five principal exercises performed in the Grecian games. These were, wrestling, darting, leaping, running, and quoit-playing. He who bore away the prize in them all was called pentethlus; by the Latins, quinquertio, as the five exercises themselves were by those latter people called quinquertium. ” (Encyclopaedia Londinensis: Pentathlon)

Kathy wrote down Pentathalon, which Alex said they would accept despite the misspelling. She bet $398 and finished with $798.

Jonathan also got it right and added $5,001 to finish with $12,201.

Rachel wrote down “the Decathalon.” She lost $5,401 and he ended up with $3,599.

Weird game with the players not seeming to pay much attention to the categories sometimes or the clues other times, but we have another new champ and maybe Jonathan will do less guessing tomorrow.

Note from VJ: Sometimes when I’m being rushed to the dinner table, I have to finish up the recap and something occurs to me later, then I usually put it in the comments. But this time, I’m adding this addendum because even though Alex accepted Kathy’s answer “Pentathalon” as a misspelling, that did add an extra syllable to the word. How many times have we seen contestants get dinged for adding an “s” or leaving off an “s”. And then there was Reid who left an ‘n” in his answer, causing him to lose the whole game!