A 26-week run of flawless scores on the Guardian's weekly sports quiz died on a La Vuelta question, and retirement followed within the hour
A 26-week perfect streak on the Guardian's weekly sports quiz ended on a La Vuelta question, prompting an immediate and tearful retirement. The quiz world calls it the end of an era. The US Open, reportedly, also took place.
The question was worth one point. It asked who wore the red jersey at La Vuelta, and it sat there on the page like a landmine dressed as a paragraph.
Dennis Prowse, 68, of Stockport, got it wrong on Wednesday morning at his kitchen table. With that, the longest perfect streak in the history of the Guardian's weekly sports quiz was over. Twenty-six consecutive weeks. Twenty-six flawless sheets. Gone in one click.
He announced his retirement from competitive quiz-taking before his tea had cooled. His coach, a neighbour named Alan Fitch who describes his role as 'mostly emotional', confirmed the decision to reporters gathered on the drive.
'People ask what it takes to go twenty-six weeks without a wrong answer. It takes everything. It took his weekends. It took his marriage to the sofa. Cycling took the rest.'
Fitch described a training regime of monastic ferocity. Prowse rose at five to read cricket scorecards cold. He studied rugby league the way generals study terrain. He once refused a family christening because it clashed with a boxing undercard he needed for question seven.
The Amateur Quiz Combat Association, which governs the discipline in the northwest, called it the end of an era. 'We compare it to Rome falling,' said spokesperson Margaret Oyelaran. 'Rome at least saw it coming.'
Elsewhere, apparently, actual sport occurred
In minor news, the US Open continued in New York, where some tennis happened. The Premier League also played fixtures. Results were recorded. Nobody at the Prowse residence looked up.
La Vuelta itself, the race that felled a titan, rolled on through Spain without acknowledging what it had done. Riders climbed mountains. None of them climbed anything as steep as question four.
Oyelaran said the association will retire Prowse's biro, a move without precedent in the sport. It will hang in the function room of the Stockport Social Club, behind glass, next to nothing, because nothing has earned the wall space.
There was one flicker of hope before the cameras left. Asked whether a comeback was possible, Fitch paused for a long time. 'He's been watching the BBC football quizzes again,' he said quietly. 'You don't watch those recreationally. Not at his level.'
The next quiz publishes Friday. Somewhere in Stockport, a kettle is already on.
