The Glass is Still Full on THE AMAZING RACE CANADA: ‘One Thing That Surprised Me Was How Proud I Felt of Us’

By BILL HARRIS Special to The Lede The dreaded “Double Pass” loomed large over the tense and turbulent proceedings as the 10th season of CTV’s THE AMAZING RACE CANADA continued with its dramatic sixth episode (available for catch-up on CTV.ca and the CTV app). A “Double Pass” potentially forces two separate teams to stop and wait for the teams that are immediately behind them. Racers at the front of the pack can either pick a team to be passed, and risk the hard feelings that might ensue (even though it’s supposed to be anonymous), or simply forego it, and let the desperate teams at the back sort it out, if they choose to do so. Some of the remaining teams also had Express Passes burning holes in their pockets, which made for an extremely strategic episode, from start to finish. SPOILER ALERT: Details about what happened are going to be discussed. The seven remaining teams left the Prairies and headed East to Guelph and Wellington County, Ont., where they were faced with a series of daunting challenges, such as: climbing up the Elora Quarry; searching through microfilm at a library; glass-blowing; replicating a painting in real life; and stepping into the ring to perform some specific professional wrestling moves. Julia and Olivia had begun the leg in first place, but after struggling with the microfilm and the glass-blowing, they were last to arrive at the wrestling challenge. Olivia slammed through that one quite quickly, but it was too little, too late. So while wrestlers Taylor and Katie were truly in their element and finished first in a leg for the first time in the competition, Julia Viola and Olivia Curto, a married couple from Clearview, Ont., were the last team to arrive at the mat at the University of Guelph’s Arboretum. Here’s what they had to say following their elimination: Q: What feelings are you left with after the overall experience? OLIVIA: “Definitely gratitude, 100% grateful that we were able to be one of the teams even chosen to be on the show. And then, just for me, thrilling to be able to hop from place to place, challenge to challenge. It’s definitely down our alley of things that we like, and how we like to live everyday life. So I had a great time, and I think you had a great time, too … (turns to Julia).” JULIA: “Just appreciation. We’ve been watching the show for years. We’ve applied. This was our fourth time, and we finally got on. So we were super excited. And then actually racing, it just lived up to, and surpassed, all of our expectations. And to be able to do it together was the most amazing part. One thing that surprised me was how proud I felt of us, and of her, and just overcoming obstacles and challenges together. And then even winning a leg, it was just so unreal. We would do it again in a heartbeat.” OLIVIA: “We always compete against each other. This is the first time we could compete together. And it was awesome. I think we did well.” JULIA: “We make a good team.” Q: You were first when the leg began, but last by the end of it. How do you process that? JULIA: “The whole race was a roller-coaster for us. We went from the back to the top, and the top to the back. But we knew that could happen, from watching previous seasons. That’s what we love about the race, it’s so unpredictable. The final leg, obviously, it sucks. It’s not the outcome we wanted. But the margin of error is so small, and things didn’t go our way that day.” OLIVIA: “I think we’re still slightly processing it, because in our heads, we’re still champions. We’re still #1. One second you can be having the race of your life, but with one wrong move, you can find yourself struggling. And it was a very competitive season. A lot of people were coming in with focused mindsets and competitive backgrounds. We were also up against two Express Passes at the end there. But we did our best.” Q: What do you think ultimately thwarted you? The microfilm? The glass-blowing? JULIA?: “It was a combination. It was a little bit of everything, because we started off well in the Roadblock at Elora Gorge. We got there first, I made it through. But the problems began at the archives challenge. With our strategy, we were actually paying too much attention to detail. We wanted to be too perfect, so we wouldn’t miss anything. We were really reading every line and every headline, and in the end, it was way more obvious than that. So a couple of teams passed us there. Secondly, I think we chose the wrong Detour. You know, glass-blowing seemed like it would be super cool and a lot of fun, but it ended up being very difficult. We have so much respect for glass-blowers now. It’s an incredible skill and form of artwork. I think the other challenge, the other Detour, would have been way better suited to our strengths.” Q: What was the other choice again? Replicating the painting in real life? OLIVIA: “Yes … which I could have done with my eyes closed! You have no idea! But our focus was also to try things that we’ve never done before as well. Yes, it’s a race, but it’s also an opportunity to step out of your shell, and try things that we wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to try. What was the other one that we picked?” JULIA: “We picked marimba, just because it sounded so cool.” OLIVIA: “Yeah, instead of oil and vinegar tasting! We’re Italian! I’m not sure what we did there.” Q: You didn’t use the Double Pass when you had a chance. Do you regret it? JULIA: “I don’t think using it would have affected the outcome in any way. We were in the top two at the time. Michael and Tyson also chose not to put anyone up. We were right there at the same time with them at the board, and we had the same mentality. Our strategy was, the teams behind us are going to do it anyway, almost guaranteed. Had we been in the middle of the pack, or towards the back, we 100% would have used it. But it was all based on where we were, at that moment, when we got to the board.” OLIVIA: “We were 99% sure that the teams behind us were going to do the dirty work. So we wanted to just run through it, and not put a target on our back, because you never know what could happen. When we give people our word, we stick to it, so we stand behind our choice.” Q: You thought you had a workable alliance with Kevin and Gurleen a couple of episodes back, but they double-crossed you. Are you over it, or not really? OLIVIA: “I think we break it up two different ways. As competitors and athletes, there are no hard feelings in terms of actually physically doing the Double U-Turn. We saw it as having an opportunity to do another activity that others didn’t, because that was our mentality for the race. But when it comes down to partnership, and working together with teams, that’s where we feel betrayed. We were one of the only teams that said to them, ‘yes, we’ll work with you.’ We were approached by other teams who said, ‘let’s vote for Kevin and Gurleen,’ and we were like, ‘no, we gave them our word, we won’t do that.’ We ran an honest, true race, which is how we wanted to run it. But it’s hard to get over them going behind our backs and voting for us, after you give someone your word. We weren’t prepared for that. Again, it’s a game, but … ” JULIA: “Yeah, like she was saying, we’re not upset about being U-turned, because that’s part of the race. What’s upsetting is that we literally had an agreement, and then as everyone saw, they just completely went against their word. And we had defended them to multiple teams. So that’s where it was a bit upsetting. But what was even better was to get through it, and prove them wrong, you know? If we would have gone home because of that, I feel like it would be way worse. That would have sucked, to be betrayed like that, and then get eliminated. But because we came back, we killed it, we proved them wrong, we made it through, and then we won the next leg – that makes it even more sweet, you know what I mean? Victory is sweeter when it’s through hardships. I think it made for a great story.” THE AMAZING RACE CANADA picks up with a new episode next Tuesday, Aug. 20 at 9 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca, and the CTV app. billharristv@gmail.com @billharris_tv