'Twice in a lifetime opportunity': Ontario woman to compete in Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions

Juveria Zaheer used to watch “Jeopardy!” a lot with her family when she was a little girl. She followed Ken Jennings’ historical winning streak in 2004 and considers the late Alex Trebek as one of the most famous Canadians out there. Now, she’s competing in the Tournament of Champions.

Juveria Zaheer used to watch “Jeopardy!” a lot with her family when she was a little girl. She followed Ken Jennings’ historical winning streak in 2004 and considers the late Alex Trebek as one of the most famous Canadians out there. Now, she’s competing in the Tournament of Champions.

Hailing from Whitby, Ont., the 41-year-old psychiatrist and associate professor’s journey on the trivia show actually started over a year ago. In that first episode, which aired in May 2023, she competed against Hannah Wilson, who defeated Zaheer during her initial appearance of her eight-game winning streak.

“She is just unbelievable, and the first half of the game, I was like, ‘Oh no, this is terrible.’ I felt my heart beating in my ears. I felt like I wanted to sink through the floor – nothing was going right,” Zaheer told CTV News Toronto.

“I think that because everything happened so fast, I sort of focused on learning as much as I could, learning as much content, but didn’t think as much about like, ‘What does this mean to me? And how is this going to feel? And how do I stay calm?’”

But, once that game was over, Zaheer didn’t lose hope – she started to prepare for the off-chance that she would get called back to the show.

“There was a part of me that thought like, ‘You know, Juveria, you played pretty well. Is there a chance they might ask you back?’” Zaheer said, adding she tried learning as much as she could in the interim.

“It’s such a once in a lifetime, or twice in a lifetime, opportunity that I thought, ‘If there’s a small chance I’m going to get called back for a Second Chance [Tournament], I’m going to be ready, and I’m gonna give it my all.’”