'Jeopardy!' makes history with first-ever sudden death tiebreaker

Jeopardy! history was made when two contestants competed during the final tournament of Thursday’s episode. While all three of the show’s competitors wrote in wrong submissions for the Channel Islands prompt, Laura and Sarah found themselves in a tie, which led to the first-ever Final Jeopardy! tiebreaker.

The tiebreaker rules were announced in 2016: “If there are two or three players tied for first place after each contestant unveils their Final Jeopardy! response, [host] Alex [Trebek] will present one more category and read the clue. The clue has no dollar value and does not increase the player’s winnings.”

In short, no more co-champions. Instead, Trebek presented these two ladies with a sudden death lightning round. The first contestant to buzz in with the correct response was declared a winner. If, by chance, neither were able to answer correctly, then the rounds would keep going until someone did.

Fortunately, it wasn’t anything to do with Kendrick Lamar or football, and Laura emerged victorious. Watch the tiebreaker go down in the clip above.