What is the optimal age to be a contestant on Jeopardy?

[Roaster]

As I write this the 2014 Tournament of Champions is going on.  The finalists are

 

Ben Ingram - age 30
Arthur Chu - age 30
Julia Collins - age 32

 

(I got these ages from the Internet)

 

This also seems to be about the same age when NFL quarterbacks peak in performance.

 

Thinking back on strong players over the years, it seems many are in their 30s.  Is this the optimal age range?  Old enough to have accumulated a lot of knowledge but young enough to still have a fast reaction time?

 

One of the contestant in the tournament was Sandie Baker who is 51 (same as me, so I identified with her a little).  So middle-aged people can still be good, but it seems the rough peak in age distribution for the best players is in their 30s.

 

Garry Kasparov, who is also 51, was one of the greatest chess champions of all time.  He doesn't compete at that level any more.  Why?  For the same reason you don't see 51-year-old quarterbacks in the NFL, I think.  Age matters.  The top chess players in the world are in their 20s and 30s and Kasparov can't beat them anymore.

 

What do you think?

[panthergirl13]

I don't think it's just about reaction time, but also about points of reference for some of the categories. They seem to mix it up pretty well (sometimes I think, "No one under 40 would know what the hell that is") but it does seem that people in their 30s seem to fare best overall.

[Abstract]

You mean the Jeopardy Archive doesn't have a graph that plots the age of all the Jeopardy champions ever? I'm actually surprised.