Ed Whitlock Answer on Jeopardy!

But what I want to know is how the contestant didn't even hesitate for the right answer.....that is a very obscure bit of trivia right there!

Sloinnorcal wrote:

But what I want to know is how the contestant didn't even hesitate for the right answer.....that is a very obscure bit of trivia right there!

Any intelligent person could guess this on the info given.

Clarify me wrote:

Sloinnorcal wrote:

But what I want to know is how the contestant didn't even hesitate for the right answer.....that is a very obscure bit of trivia right there!

Any intelligent person could guess this on the info given.

Yea, I don't really know who the guy is but under 4 hours would be a marathon. It wouldn't be some obscure thing like eat 100 hot dogs.

Clarify me wrote:

Sloinnorcal wrote:

But what I want to know is how the contestant didn't even hesitate for the right answer.....that is a very obscure bit of trivia right there!

Any intelligent person could guess this on the info given.

While that may be true, whoever came up with the question in the first place must have known who Ed Whitlock was.

What is have sex?

Seriously, it's a nice recognition for Ed Whitlock who was a great inspiration and a cool guy.

I don't think the average person could guess the answer from context. To the average person, sub-2 hours or sub-4 hours for a marathon sound exactly the same.

What is turn your blinker off after a lane change?

Old runners represent! wrote:

What is have sex?

Seriously, it's a nice recognition for Ed Whitlock who was a great inspiration and a cool guy.

I don't think the average person could guess the answer from context. To the average person, sub-2 hours or sub-4 hours for a marathon sound exactly the same.

Just asked a guy at the office (non-runner) and he got this one immediately without any category. I think most people who know someone who's run one could get this.

Yeah, the guy doesn't have to know who Whitlock is to give the right response. In what other endeavor, and don't say sex, is "under four hours" a meaningful stat?

Who Do They Think wrote:

Yeah, the guy doesn't have to know who Whitlock is to give the right response. In what other endeavor, and don't say sex, is "under four hours" a meaningful stat?

You may be right on Jeopardy where you usually have smart people who are good at guessing from context. However, if you surveyed the general public and asked "What barrier are the top men trying to break in the marathon - the 5 hour barrier, the 4 hour barrier, the 3 hour barrier, the 2 hour barrier, or the 1 hour barrier?" I bet the answers would be almost evenly distributed.

It wasn't answer...remember, it's Jeopardy, so it was the "question".

Most of y'all are clueless. The whole point of Jeopardy! is that many of the "questions" are implied by the answers. And these aren't "average people." An intelligent, worldly person is likely to have some clue that four hours is a somewhat slow time for a young person but would be an extremely impressive feat for someone of Ed Whitlock's age.

McTrebek wrote:

It wasn't answer...remember, it's Jeopardy, so it was the "question".

The answer was about Ed Whitlock. The question was "What is the marathon?"

The host, Alex Trebek, is from Canada and actually still writes some of the answers/questions. I wouldn't be surprised if he wrote this one to give props to a fellow Canadian.

The dude who correctly guessed had won something like 12 days in a row, so he was no slouch.

Ed Whitlock is an all-time-great athlete. Love that he got a mainstream mention.

What is a full mary?