Daantjie Badenhorst

Who is Daantjie Badenhorst?

Daniel Streicher Badenhorst is a South African quiz show champion, journalist and author. He won Series 24 of South Africa's long-running Afrikaans language television musical quiz show, Noot vir Noot. He later also won the 2005 edition of "Flinkdink", a televised Afrikaans language general knowledge quiz show. Badenhorst has Asperger syndrome and campaigns for public awareness of the condition.

Badenhorst was born in Pietermaritzburg, one of four children. He completed high school at Hoërskool Waterkloof, Pretoria, in 1985. He subsequently went to work for the South African Government Printing Works.

In 2004 he entered Noot vir Noot and immediately made history during the first round when he surpassed the scoreboard's maximum of ZAR 10,000 before the end of the show. This was the first time it happened in the show's history. His total winnings for the evening was ZAR 26,075. Badenhorst's performance on the show, and his autism spectrum disorder, drew wide interest and articles about him appeared in many newspapers and magazines, including Huisgenoot and YOU. His total winnings in the series was ZAR 77,200 - an all-time record. He was subsequently offered, and accepted, a sub-editor position at Beeld, South Africa's largest Afrikaans language newspaper. Since then, he has become a content editor of the internet edition of the newspaper, beeld.com.