The Chase’s creator reveals the show was inspired by athlete USAIN BOLT

The Chase’s creator has revealed that the popular quiz show was inspired by athlete Usain Bolt. 

Michael Kelpie, who is an executive producer and creator of the ITV series, explained how the concept came about after a researcher suggested making a ‘quiz race’.

The show was launched in 2009 and has successfully ran for 14 seasons with Bradley Walsh as host and Chasers including Mark Labbett and Anne Hegerty.

Michael, who is MD of Potato which is part of ITV Studios, explained how he joined the team working on a gameshow concept after the Beijing Olympics in 2008, where Usain set the 100m record of 9.69 seconds. 

He told The Sun: ‘Everybody in the world was excited by him [Usain Bolt] and everybody in television and broadcasters all over the world were going ,”How can we get that excitement into our television programmes?”

‘And in a dusty room in the ITV tower back in the day a development researcher went, “What if we did a quiz race and what if they [contestants] had to race against the Usain Bolt of quizzes?” and that was the start of The Chase.’

He added: ‘You may say, “Oh my God that is a really simple idea,” but it was a moment of pure genius and that person has done very, very well since financially.’  

Since its launch in 2009 The Chase has made household names out of several quiz experts including Mark Labbett and Shaun Wallace who have been with the show since the start.

Anne Hegerty joined the show a year later while Paul Sinha was added to the lineup in 2011 and Jenny Ryan joining the quiz superstars in 2015.

The latest edition to the Chasers is Darragh Ennis, dubbed The Menace, whose position was announced in 2020. 

It comes after Anne Hegerty shed light on how her autism has stopped her from finding love.

In spin-off series The Chasers Road Trip, the presenter, 62, revealed the longest relationship she’s ever had was four months, and ended as she ‘wasn’t good’ at providing him with the right amount of attention.

Anne went onto joke that she’s ‘basically a Cyborg’ after learning that she has an emotional intelligence level of just 1 per cent.

Anne also reflected on how challenging it’s been to find love due to her autism.  

She said: ‘One of the things that really goes along with autism is that I really can’t hold down relationships. I’ve tried. My longest relationship was four months and that only lasted that long because he lived in Brighton and I lived in Manchester.

‘He was a lovely bloke but I’m just good with the sort of amount of attention that people need.’