Amazing Race Canada: Front-running duos battle it out in finale
RUTH MYLES : “One hell of a Race.” That’s how competitors Matt and Gino sum up their experience on The Amazing Race Canada while watching their partners (Nick and Jesse, respectively) search for a single ski in a sea of thousands atop Whistler Mountain during the finale.
And at this point in Wednesday night’s episode, it’s still either team’s game as the two front-running duos battle it out for the not insubstantial grand prize. (It’s $250K, two Chevy Colorado trucks, airfare for two in business class for a year anywhere Air Canada flies and gas for life from Petro-Canada, in case you forgot.)
In the end, brothers Gino and Jesse Montani edge out friends and wrestling teammates Nick Foti and Matt Giunta to win Season 3. And East Coast siblings Brent and Sean Sweeney do much better than their start would lead viewers to believe, thanks in no small part to an error by the Montanis.
Here are three things you need to know about Wednesday night’s finale:
1. Up where we belong
The three remaining teams fly from Edmonton to Vancouver, cabbing it to the Terry Fox Memorial beside B.C. Place. In the Detour, one team member must ride a bicycle across a plank suspended between two beams on the outside of the building . . . 200 feet up. As if that’s not tough enough, the board is painted with a varying white line against a black background, creating an optical illusion designed to throw the rider off balance. Gino and Jesse’s cab just beats the wrestlers to the location, and Gino gets it in one go.
“It’s going to look like one of those bears on the little teeny bicycles in the circus,” Nick cracks from the ground as he watches his burly partner prepare for the task. “They should give him the little hat with the wheel on top.”
Both teams are now on their way to Whistler, 120 klicks north of Vancouver. They’re soon to be joined by Brent and Sean . . . if only Brent could get across that plank. But he can’t. And he can’t. And he can’t. As his attempts hit the double digits, Sean ascends to the staging platform high in the air to support his little brother. On attempt 20, Brent makes it across without falling (thanks, safety harness!) and the pair are soon on their way north.
2. Smarter, not harder
Sometimes it’s the little things that count, like neglecting to fully erase your calculations from a wipe board . . . on the final leg . . . for all the money. But that’s exactly what Gino and Jesse do at the second task. They arrive at the Squamish Lilwat Cultural Centre in Whistler to find a map of the world, a small piece of red string and a scale on the map. Using the string, they must calculate the distance of each leg of the race — in the correct order, naturally — and then convert their answer into kilometres. Teams have a five per cent margin of error on the correct answer, which is 48,500 km.
The brothers are confident, but soon fall into squabbling. Nick and Matt arrive, assess the task and then whip through it, leapfrogging into first. The brothers finish not too far behind, but leave the ghost of their correct answer on the board under their calculations.
So Brent and Sean simply copy the right answer onto their board and are out of the challenge in a flash, making up all that time they lost in Vancouver. The Sweeneys use their noggins again during the ski challenge. Brent notices that his ski has “162” on it and carefully looks for another ski with the same number. Bingo! He gets it on his first try and they’re off!
3. Jockeying for position
While Gino and Jesse lead the pack through the first few obstacles, Nick and Matt overtake them during the map challenge at the cultural centre. The BFFs hold the No. 1 spot through the next task (sabreing the tops off four bottles of Champagne), but lose pole position when the brothers foil their attempt to steal their cab. This means Gino and Jesse are first to the gondola up Whistler Mountain. Jesse’s finishing the Road Block first keeps them out front through the second half of the challenge: skiing off a freestyle jump into a large outdoor pool.