Kai becomes youngest 'Countdown' winner

An 11-year-old boy today became the youngest winner of 'Countdown's “Octochamp” title in 20 years.

Kai Laddiman from Broad Oak, East Sussex, beat Richard Pascoe, a market research manager from Leeds, by 105 points to 55.

This was his eighth win in a row, earning him the game show’s Octochamp crown and making him the second youngest Octochamp in the programme’s 26-year history.

The record-holder is Allan Saldanha, who became an Octochamp in 1988 at the age of 10.

Kai trounced his opponent after spotting the nine-letter word “thirteens” in the last round.

He then took six seconds to solve the conundrum, rearranging the anagram “nicejoint” to form the word “injection.”

He grinned happily, sighed with relief and gave a big thumbs up after winning.

He said: “It felt brilliant to win, it was so amazing. I wasn’t expecting to go that far.

“I thought I could but I didn’t think I would.”

His mother Naomi Laddiman said she was “very proud” of her son.

Kai’s victory propelled him to the number two position on the series leader board and earnt him a place in the series final in December.

The series winner will receive a limited edition leather-bound dictionary and encyclopaedia set, which may be taller than Kai if all the volumes were stacked on top of each other.

The schoolboy, who wants to be a footballer or an inventor when he grows up, learnt his letters and numbers from watching Countdown at the age of two.

He has been beating his parents and grandparents at Scrabble from the age of six and has already obtained a B grade in AS level maths.

The Channel 4 word and numbers game has attracted a stream of youthful competitors in recent years.

In 1992 eight-year-old James Squires won and in 2005 Tanmay Dixit won in two shows at the age of eight.

In 2006 14-year-old Conor Travers became the youngest series champion.