BU student recalls Total Wipeout win

21 year-old Leisure Marketing student ‘Baz’ Bignell tells the story of how a spontaneous email took him to Argentina, South Africa and Mozambique – as well as making him £10,000 richer.

‘Baz’ Bignell was 19 when he took part in the show

“I was 19 when I took part in Total Wipeout and was on my gap year at the time” Baz recounts.

“I was watching it on telly one time and at the end it said if you think you could take on the big red balls send an application form into us – so I did!”

The BU student was confident on conquering the big red balls

Six months later Baz was asked to attend an audition in London for a new series entitled ‘Winter Wipeout’.

“I went up to London thinking I would be one of a select few to be picked from the applications but I arrived to a sports hall filled hundreds of people all dressed up in fancy dress.

“I went dressed as a tennis player as I was working as a tennis coach at the time. I had tight shorts, sweat bands, the lot!”

Former tennis coach Baz now plays for the BU Varsity Tennis team

Within a couple of days of the audition, having impressed BBC judges, Baz received an email inviting him to take part in the show in Buenos Aries.

“I started running round the house with the flight details in my hand!

“Once we arrived in Argentina we went straight to the wipeout course which was just in the middle of a massive field. We got shown the course, but weren’t allowed to practice on it.”

Baz poses in front of the Winter Wipeout course

The show, presented by Top Gear’s Richard Hammond, comprises of four rounds where participants endeavor to conquer different obstacles with inevitably hilarious consequences.

Baz breezed through the famous ‘big red balls’ in the first round with a time of 2 minutes 18 seconds.

Baz recorded an impressive first round time

He made the second and third rounds look equally as easy as his more senior competitors fell by the waste side.

Baz readies himself for the second round

“My favourite round was definitely the dizzy dummies [third round]. I enjoyed that round the most, although it always took me forever to un-strap myself from the spiny thing!”

Baz watches a fellow competitor fall

So Baz progressed through to the final round – ‘The Wipeout Zone’.

Going second he recorded an impressive time of 2 minutes 16 seconds which was enough to see him lift the Winter Wipeout trophy and take back to England a cool £10k in prize money.

The 19 year-old is mobbed as he is told he has won Winter Wipeout

“I never really thought I would actually win it” he reflects.

“It started to sink in that I had on the flight home. My family was on holiday at the time and when I called my mum she thought I was joking!”

Baz decided that Uni could wait for a bit and used his winnings to travel to South Africa and Mozambique for three months.

He didn’t blow the money all at once though, saying “the rest will be spent on trips in the future.”

Finally I ask Baz if he is tempted to try his luck at any other game shows having conquered the Wipeout Zone.

“I smashed it!”

“No more game shows for me I think. Total wipeout was the one and I smashed it”.