Warning: This page contains spoilers for the June 20, 2023, game of Jeopardy! — please do not scroll down if you wish to avoid being spoiled. Please note that the game airs as early as noon Eastern in some U.S. television markets.
Here’s today’s Final Jeopardy (in the category The Olympics) for Tuesday, June 20, 2023 (Season 39, Game 202):
This sport that made its Olympic debut in 1988 has a playing surface of only about 45 square feet
(correct response beneath the contestants)
Today’s Jeopardy! contestants:
Janie Sullivan, a scrum master from Park Ridge, Illinois |
Tym Blanchard, a cryptocurrency & angel investor from Nashville, Tennessee |
Ben Goldstein, a content marketing specialist from Dexter, Michigan (2-day total: $15,198) |
Andy’s Pregame Thoughts:
Ben Goldstein is now a 2-day champion, making his way up the postseason ladder; he goes for win #3 today against Nashville’s Tym Blanchard and metro Chicago’s Janie Sullivan. I do have my own theory as to why we’ve been seeing so many more games like yesterday’s and June 7’s, which saw contestants struggle with the material. I’ll be posting it this weekend with my Weekly Thoughts.
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(Content continues below)
Correct response: What is table tennis?
More information about Final Jeopardy:
(The following write-up is original content and is copyright 2023 The Jeopardy! Fan. It may not be copied without linked attribution back to this page.)
Table tennis, which made its official Olympic debut at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea, is played on a rectangular 9-foot-by-5-foot table. (Hence, 45 square feet). China has easily been the most dominant nation in table tennis, having won 60 of the 115 medals awarded in the sport since 1988. (South Korea is second on the overall table tennis medal table, with just 18). In order to halt China’s dominance (it had two podium sweeps in 2008), the IOC reduced each country’s allowance from 3 male and 3 female athletes to 2 male and 2 female.
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Game Recap & Tonight’s Game Stats:
Looking to find out who won Jeopardy! today? Here’s the Tuesday, June 20, 2023 Jeopardy! by the numbers, along with a recap:
Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Let’s Stick Together; Architects; Vowel, Vowel, Consonant, Consonant; Nonprofits; American History; Triple “A”-Rated Food)
Ben and Janie collectively dominated on the signalling device, while Tym definitely struggled.
Statistics at the first break (15 clues):
Ben 6 correct 0 incorrect
Janie 5 correct 1 incorrect
Tym 0 correct 0 incorrect
Today’s interviews:
Janie hiked an active volcano at sunrise, but was stopped by fog.
Tym suffered a respirator blowout while climbing Mt. Everest.
Ben named his dog after an Antiguan beer.
Statistics after the Jeopardy round:
Ben 11 correct 1 incorrect
Janie 10 correct 2 incorrect
Tym 1 correct 2 incorrect
Scores after the Jeopardy! Round:
Ben $5,600
Janie $3,500
Tym -$1,000
Double Jeopardy! Round:
(Categories: Let’s Stick Together; Chapter & Verse; Love Island U.K.; That Musical Act Is Unreal!; There Will Be Math; Just Say…)
Double Jeopardy! saw Tym’s struggles continue, while both challengers got Daily Doubles incorrect. Unfortunately, Tym was unable to stay out of the red, so it was just 2 people around for Final.
Statistics after Double Jeopardy:
Janie 18 correct 4 incorrect
Ben 17 correct 5 incorrect
Tym 7 correct 7 incorrect
Total number of unplayed clues this season: 34 (0 today).
Scores going into Final:
Janie $7,500
Ben $6,800
Tym -$3,800
Final Jeopardy! today was a Double Stumper; Ben’s small wager again turned him into a 3-day champion!
Tonight’s results:
Tym -$3,800 (By rule, did not participate in Final Jeopardy)
Ben $6,800 – $705 = $6,095 (What is handball?) (3-day total: $21,293)
Janie $7,500 – $7,000 = $500 (What is squash? sumo wrestling)
Other Miscellaneous Game Statistics:
Daily Double locations:
1) ARCHITECTS $800 (clue #28)
Janie 4400 -1500 (Ben 6200 Tym 0)
2) JUST SAY… $1200 (clue #19)
Tym -3000 -2000 (Ben 6000 Janie 9100)
3) LOVE ISLAND U.K. $1600 (clue #22, $6400 left on board)
Janie 9500 -2000 (Ben 6000 Tym -4200)
Overall Daily Double Efficiency for this game: -155
Clue Selection by Row, Before Daily Doubles Found:
J! Round:
Ben 2 2 3 4 3 2 4 5 1 1 4 5 2 3 4 5
Tym 5
Janie 1 3 1 1 2 3 2 1 4 5 4*
DJ! Round:
Ben 2 1 5 2
Tym 4 5 4 4 5 2 3 3* 2† 1†
Janie 3 5 4 5 3 4 3 4*
† – selection in same category as Daily Double
Average Row of Clue Selection, Before Daily Doubles Found:
Ben 3.00
Janie 3.05
Tym 3.45
Unplayed clues:
J! Round: None!
DJ! Round: None!
Total Left On Board: $0
Number of clues left unrevealed this season: 34 (0.17 per episode average), 0 Daily Doubles
Game Stats:
Ben $6,800 Coryat, 17 correct, 5 incorrect, 39.29% in first on buzzer (22/56), 0/0 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Janie $11,000 Coryat, 18 correct, 4 incorrect, 28.57% in first on buzzer (16/56), 2/3 on rebound attempts (on 10 rebound opportunities)
Tym -$1,800 Coryat, 7 correct, 7 incorrect, 19.64% in first on buzzer (11/56), 1/2 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
Combined Coryat Score: $16,000
Lach Trash: $17,800 (on 15 Triple Stumpers)
Coryat lost to incorrect responses (less double-correct responses): $20,200
Player Statistics:
Ben Goldstein, career statistics:
56 correct, 15 incorrect
2/3 on rebound attempts (on 22 rebound opportunities)
37.06% in first on buzzer (63/170)
0/2 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$4,800)
0/3 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $10,067
Tym Blanchard, career statistics:
7 correct, 7 incorrect
1/2 on rebound attempts (on 6 rebound opportunities)
19.64% in first on buzzer (11/56)
0/1 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$2,000)
0/0 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: -$1,800
Janie Sullivan, career statistics:
18 correct, 5 incorrect
2/3 on rebound attempts (on 10 rebound opportunities)
28.57% in first on buzzer (16/56)
0/2 on Daily Doubles (Net Earned: -$3,500)
0/1 in Final Jeopardy
Average Coryat: $11,000
Ben Goldstein, to win:
4 games: 26.247%
5: 6.889%
6: 1.808%
7: 0.475%
8: 0.125%
Avg. streak: 3.356 games.
Andy’s Thoughts:
- The contestant coordinators have preached this for years: the best preparation for Jeopardy! is still “watching Jeopardy!“; all three Daily Doubles in this game had context clues that would be readily apparent to longtime watchers of the program. By way of example: late 17th century + London + architect = Christopher Wren; “Just Say…” was clearly “words that rhyme with no”, and any mention “Bligh” should immediately point contestants towards the Pitcairn Islands and/or the Bounty.
- Because someone will inevitably ask, the lowest total for a 3-day champion is still $4,400 (doubled to $8,800), set by Bill Klippel in January 1985.
- Today’s box score: June 20, 2023 Box Score.
Final Jeopardy! wagering suggestions:
(Scores: Janie $7,500 Ben $6,800 Tym -$3,800)
Ben: Limit your bet to $5,399. (Actual bet: $705)
Tym: (By rule, did not participate in Final Jeopardy)
Janie: Standard cover bet over Ben is $6,101. (Actual bet: $7,000)
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Would ping pong be accepted?
I’d be surprised if it was in the context of an Olympics category; being that “ping pong” was at least at one point a registered trademark, “table tennis” is the official name of the sport in an Olympic context.
Hopefully the fact that they ask for the sport and not the name of the event sets them up to accept “ping pong”.
I’m taking the other side here. In the context of a category called “The Olympics”—I do not believe that “ping pong” is acceptable. The name of the sport in an Olympic context is “table tennis” and only “table tennis”.
(Admin note: Commenters are reminded that the portion of the Site Comment Policy that says “your remarks must be reasonably sound with citations provided” is in effect. Comments that just say “I think x should be accepted” without any reasoning or citations, remembering that the category title sets the scope of “the Olympics”, will be removed per the SCP.)
If some or all of them say “ping pong”, the Jeopardy switchboard will light up yet again.
100% agree here. It would be like accepting rollerblading for inline skating.
or soccer instead of football…or pickeyooney instead of picayune
I’d forgotten that it was added that recently (yeah, at my age, 35 years ago was recently). Since sports are some times added because of the current host country, if I’d thought to think of South Korea first, I may have thought of table tennis. As it was, I went with the uneven parallel bars which I knew it couldn’t be, but was the only thing I could think that would fit in that area.
Got it! Although I thought it had been in the Olympics longer than that, nothing else seemed to fit.
I didn’t get it. Because, like Dave B., I thought that Table Tennis had been an Olympic sport since some time before the 1988 games. I guessed 3×3 basketball, but the court is most likely bigger than 45 sq. ft., and, was probably added after the 1988 games
I never would have gotten it with just the year, but the play area size gave it away😁
Same here. Just by the date I would have guessed volleyball (which was actually about 20 years earlier), but 45 square feet immediately made me think 5’X 9′ which immediately made me think ping pong table, which I knew to say as table tennis.
I can’t imagine playing handball in a court that small and sumo wrestling is not even an Olympic sport.
and handball isn’t an olympic sport, but team handball is. team handball is fun to watch, but US never has a competitive team.
I got this one because I have been a big fan of table tennis since watching the olympics which featured this sport. In fact I’ve been to friends houses several times and they got table tennis in the basement. The game seems to be a lot better than yesterday
I didn’t think that table tennis was that current either. I am also curious what would happen if someone guessed ping pong.
I was in the studio audience during this game in April and came up with the correct response during the “Think” music. So did others despite the fact we are not supposed to discuss it.
Thanks Andy for the info on who has the lowest score in their first three games…set way back in 1985 no less.
The unfortunate thing about this debate is that Jeopardy has only ever used table tennis as a correct response in Final Jeopardy one time (10/22/04), and there, both remaining contestants wrote “table tennis” as their Final response.
Generally, though, I think the best thing to do in debates like these is go to J! Archive and see if the alternate response was accepted or not.
It looks to me like ping-pong would be accepted. On J! Archive, episode #7109 (airdate 2015-07-09) has the clue “China’s 4’11” Deng Yaping won 4 golds in this racket sport in the 1990s” in the category “Olympians”, and “ping-pong” was credited as a correct response.
Also, in episode #6591 (airdate 2013-04-22), the clue “In London in 2012 a gold medal in this sport went to Jike Zhang” in the category “Sound”, shows “ping-pong” as a parenthetical correct response, suggesting that Alex Trebek said it as he affirmed the contestant’s answer of “table tennis”.
I also failed to pick up on the theme of “Just Say…” before the DD appeared. A search of J! Archive doesn’t show that particular category name being used before, so it seems understandable that contestants might not have caught it on the fly.
And even more understandable given that two of the previous correct answers in the category were “Io” (two syllables) and “Bodhi”.
Drat! I missed Final J! today. I literally forgot about table tennis. I thought of squash or handball, although a squash or handball court would of course be larger than 45 feet. NOTE: I thought champion Ben Goldstein’s reaction upon winning today was adorable. He seemed incredulous! Tee-hee.
I’ll be interested to hear your “theory” about contestant performance!
Because of the 1988 reference I got fixated on curling, although I should have realized the playing area is much too large. I also knew Seoul was that year but couldn’t think of table tennis.
Some who KNOW that “so many” square feet is a multiple of two smaller numbers, could without realizing it, immediately upon hearing this FJ! clue think “45 feet X 45 feet square” because the majority of Olympic events seem to be big. [Because so much of the world (most, I think) use meters, they could be assuming the “about 45 square feet” to have come from a conversion from meters — which indeed is the case for regulation ping pong tables, but I mean as to the idea of 45′ sides not being exact.]