The contestants came agonisingly close to taking home £10,250 each, but Paul Sinha produced what he described as his best-ever performance in the Final Chase.
The Chaser was gracious in victory(Image: ITV)
Viewers of The Chase were left stunned after Paul Sinha pulled off a dramatic late comeback to deny a team of four a £41,000 prize in a nail-biting finale.
Morwenna, Matt, Ali and Steev had successfully made it through to the Final Chase, where they built an impressive target of 22 steps for Sinha, better known as The Sinnerman, to catch.
With £41,000 at stake, each contestant was potentially in line for £10,250.
Sinha admitted that the target was “catchable” but warned that he would need to perform at an exceptionally high level to reach it.
And that is exactly what he did.
The Chaser had an epic victory in the final chase(Image: ITV)
Sinha produces a stunning comeback
The Sinnerman raced through the questions, answering 13 correctly in a row as he closed the gap on the team.
But with only seconds remaining, he finally made a mistake.
With 17 seconds left on the clock, Sinha was pushed back and suddenly needed another three correct answers to complete the chase.
The team wanted to take home £10,250 each(Image: ITV)
The contestants were visibly nervous but appeared to have been handed a crucial opportunity.
With the clock rapidly running down, they watched anxiously as Sinha continued answering.
But the team could not hold him off.
Sinha eventually caught them with just five seconds remaining, ending their hopes of sharing the £41,000 prize.
The four contestants were left in shock after coming so close to what would have been a huge payout.
‘You deserved it’
Even Sinha acknowledged just how well the team had performed.
Presenter Bradley Walsh summed up the Chaser’s extraordinary run by saying:
“13 on bounce from the Chaser. Unbelievable.”
Sinha then paid tribute to the contestants, admitting that they had played exceptionally well.
“You deserved it. There’s not a lot more I can say about that. You played the game the best a team could have,” he said.
“That was my best performance in a Final Chase. Brilliantly played and you just deserved better.”
His comments appeared to underline just how close the team had come to pulling off a major upset.
The Chaser was seconds away from losing(Image: ITV)
Viewers praise ‘unreal’ performance
Fans quickly took to social media to praise Sinha for his performance.
One viewer described it as a “magnificent performance”, saying the team had produced a good target but Sinha had been “on fire and never flinched”.
Another wrote: “What an episode. Great team but unreal effort from Paul Sinha.”
A third viewer praised Sinha’s attitude towards the defeated contestants, describing him as “very graceful and classy”.
However, not everyone was convinced that the Chaser had faced an equally difficult challenge.
Some fans question the difficulty of the questions
Bradley Walsh was very impressed(Image: ITV)
While many viewers praised Sinha’s speed and accuracy, others questioned whether the questions given to him appeared easier than those faced by the contestants.
One viewer commented: “Even I knew about 15 of those questions the Chaser was given. A bit easy for him.”
Another wrote: “Thought those were quite easy questions for the chaser.”
A third questioned: “How easy were the chasers questions?! Hmmm.”
The criticism centred on the apparent difference in difficulty between the questions, although the question sets are selected at random before the Final Chase.
Despite the complaints, there was no suggestion in the episode that the result had been manipulated.
Instead, Sinha’s remarkable run of 13 consecutive correct answers ultimately proved decisive.
For Morwenna, Matt, Ali and Steev, the result was a particularly painful one: they had built a formidable 22-step target and were just seconds away from securing £41,000 before The Sinnerman produced a remarkable final push.