Appearing on ‘Jeopardy!’ a dream come true for Canadian bobsledder Cynthia Appiah

“And I know it’s funny to hear me say that, seeing that I’m training for the Olympics. I think most people would say that that’s also the dream of a lifetime.”

Growing up in Toronto, Appiah would watch “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” with her parents and siblings every weeknight. She’d often get in trouble for shouting out answers before the questions had been fully read out.

“That one hour was our time to be a family together,” she said.

In May, Appiah finally got a message saying she’d made it past the quiz portion of the show’s application process and would be scheduled for an interview.

Then, last month, she flew from her training base in Calgary to L.A. to tape her episode. Her sisters Martha and Evelyn travelled from Toronto to take in the experience with her.

“I was obviously in the middle of training,” Appiah said. “So as much as I was excited to go down, I still had my Olympian brain on, because I was like, ‘OK, well, I’ve got to get in and then get back out to Calgary to continue training.”

The brief respite from push training and weight room workouts was a memory she won’t soon forget.

“It was honestly a lot of fun,” Appiah said. “I am punching myself a little bit for some of the questions I did get wrong, or some that I was like, ‘I should have buzzed in!’ But ultimately, I had a great time.”

Nerves began ramping up at the studio where she met other contestants and had a chance to get used to the lights and buzzer before taping began.

As the game began, Appiah turned to her bobsled training.

“There were quite a number of moments where I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t get that one right,'” she said. “And I was just like, ‘You know what? Just like in bobsled, you don’t get the corner right, you move on to the next corner because there’s still the entire length of the track ahead of you.

“And it’s not until the race is actually over that it’s over.’ And that’s how I treated it.”

There was a moment, though, when the Olympian found herself star-struck — when “Jeopardy!” host Ken Jennings first emerged to speak with the contestants.

“I’m sitting, like, second row, and I’m like, ‘Oh my god. I’m sitting in front of Ken Jennings, the greatest of all time,’” she said.

“But he’s super cool, super chill. We had a portion where they do the mid-game interview, and then they do a post-game interview, and he was so ecstatic to chat with me. He’s like, ‘I’ve never met an Olympian and I’ve never met a bobsledder. This might be my only opportunity!”

Jennings even signed her cue card with a message wishing her good luck at the 2026 Olympics in Italy.

The run up to February’s Games is part of why Appiah pursued the show. A good performance could bring some much-needed cash to cover her ample expenses for the season.

“Just a bit of a spoiler alert, I did not do as well as I would have liked. And so I’ve had to create a GoFundMe just to be able to fully fund my season,” she said.

Appiah knows what it takes to compete at the Olympics. She finished eighth in both monobob and two-woman bobsled at the 2022 Games in Beijing.

Big results have come in recent seasons, too, including a third-place finish in the overall monobob standings in 2023.

Heading into an Olympic season, Appiah feels good about her craft.

“Whistler has really had my number for quite some time, and just after the first week of sliding, the coaches have been really positive and said, ‘You’re driving very, very well.’ And so and the times are reflecting that with the speeds and the downtimes,” she said.

“I’m really excited, and I’ve got all the tools readily available to make sure that I win a medal, but I’m going to really need the backing of all the Canadians out there to support me.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 20, 2025.

Gemma Karstens-Smith, The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

Appearing on ‘Jeopardy!’ a dream come true for Canadian bobsledder Cynthia Appiah

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