Advancing in Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions isn’t the only thing up for grabs on the show’s Feb. 29 broadcast—it’s for regional bragging rights as well.
The matchup, the equivalent of an all-star tourney in the long-running game show’s calendar, will see Silver Spring’s Kevin Belle take on Arlington’s Luigi de Guzman for a spot in the semifinals.
Belle, a University of Maryland alum, works for Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, a DC-based nonprofit that works to convert abandoned rail tracks into shared-use paths. He racked up about $43,000 in earnings across three victories last spring. When Belle’s not planning trails or giving answers in the form of questions, he moonlights as a drag queen under the stage name Whiskey Ginger.
De Guzman, a regulatory attorney at Paul Hastings, is an alum of Catholic University’s law school by way of Cambridge University and the London School of Economics. Like many Washingtonians, he is a one-time Hill intern, having worked in the office of former Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA). Over the course of five victories in 2022, de Guzman took home an eye-popping $140,700.
The third contestant scheduled for the Feb. 29 episode, psychologist Juveria Zaheer, doesn’t come from the Washington area, sadly, but does hail from a region near her nation’s capital—Ontario, Canada.
