ITV The Chase's Paul Sinha dashes guests' hopes in 'split second' despite 'brain emptying'

Fans of The Chase were left gobsmacked after quiz master Paul Sinha caught a trio of contestants within a second of the final buzzer.

The broadcaster, best known by his ITV alias, The Sinnerman, suffered temporary forgetfulness during the final chase, thus giving the challengers a fighting chance.

On Wednesday’s episode of The Chase (November 6), loyal host Bradley Walsh, 64, returned to the helm of the beloved quiz programme. He was behind four new contestants who all hoped to snatch a quarter of the earnings away from Paul, 54.

Contenders Alex, Wendy, Nigel and Candice all tried their luck to beat the Chaser, but the latter fell at the first hurdle. Candice unfortunately failed to make it home in the cash cuilder round, leaving her fellow contestants to face the final chase a woman down.

Despite their disadvantage, the trio looked as if they had their £8,000 kitty in the bag when Paul suffered from what appeared to be a temporary brain freeze. His elongated pause was caused by host Bradley asking him: “What country hosted the 2022 FIFA World Cup?”

With just 35 seconds left on the clock, Paul remained silent before admitting he had “forgotten” that Qatar was home to the winter tournament. Despairing, he was eventually forced to pass back to the team, who correctly named the country, earning themselves a point back.

Paul then had just 22 seconds to answer four questions correctly—a mammoth undertaking he pulled off by the skin of his teeth.The Chaser answered Bradley’s final question within the last second, swiftly confirming that Paul had beaten the three hopeful contestants.

“Split second. Red is the answer, just in time,” remarked the host, who has been presenting the programme since its inception in June 2009. “Caught with a second remaining.”

The trio, who had just lost their well-earned prize money, claimed another person in the final may have helped their chances. Instead of gloating, Paul praised Alex, Wendy and Nigel for almost playing a blinder.

He acknowledged: “What you showed, is it’s possible to get a good score in the Final Chase by applying common sense, good team tactics and just listening to the questions.

“A crucial moment there. You saw spectacularly, my brain just emptied on that Qatar question. I suddenly could not remember the 2022 FIFA World Cup, even though I watched nearly all the games.”

The Chaser added that the contestants had his “absolute sympathy”, claiming that they had “played great” as a team. Bradley added that The Chase is all about “full houses”, and that sometimes it’s just the luck of the draw.

Following the close shave, fans of the long-running quiz show took to social media to have their say. One Reddit user wrote: “Let's be honest even though it's the Chasers job to catch the contestants surely they must hate it.”

“I wonder if Paul's Parkinson's affects his memory and response time to questions?,” questioned someone else. “Know he was diagnosed a few years ago and his speech seemed a little slow slow / slurred tonight I thought?”

A third user praised Paul by writing: “Paul comes across such a lovely guy. I absolutely love him! He is brilliant on Taskmaster and Gogglebox.”

Another commented: “Paul had an off day. Missed a few pretty straightforward multiple choice answers and then had that blank in the final chase.

“Lucky for him the team were disappointing in the cash builders. If they'd each got 5k, all taken the middle offer they could've had 4 in the final and that would've been enough to win 20k.”

“Only getting through 21 questions in the final is disappointing though. The whole ‘accuracy over speed’ tactic has become a complete failure; plus it makes for a boring, anticlimactic final chase,” said a fifth Redditor.

Tune into The Chase every weekday from 5pm on ITV and ITVX.