Ericka cries to Brian about the difficulties of the roadblock (photo:CBS)

Brian Kleinschmidt and Ericka Dunlap of CBS’ Amazing Race 15 were down hard and sucking fumes from the rest of the competitors.  Ericka was in tears at times, they were both cold, both were making mistakes, yet neither of them were willing to give up.  Lesson number eleven seventy-seven in Tommy’s book of Amazing Race tactics.

So starting out in the episode, teams were to travel to Amsterdam.  Meghan and Cheyne left first and rushed to the airport only to find out that the first flight out was at midnight.Obviously this was to be an episode where each team would make the same fight and begin their race on equal footing.  Once the rest of the teams made it to the airport everyone sat down at a diner in the airport and just had a relaxing pow wow.

Roadblock: Counting Bells (photo: CBS)

The boys, Dan and Sam, for some reason spilled the beans that they were in fact the ‘token’ gay team.  Not really sure what the point was in them telling everyone unless perhaps to tell their family and friends back home the news.  Brian said, “oh that explains the matching swimsuits.”  Haha.  Once all the teams arrived in Amsterdam the teams head to the Afsluitdijk dam and find the Lely Monument for their next clue.  All teams made it here with no problems save Brian and Ericka.  Brian couldn’t seem to figure out how to put his ride into drive for the trip.  Once he enlisted some local aide, they were on their way not too far behind the pack.

Dan and Sam all dressed up and biking to next task (photo:CBS)

From Afsluitdijk, teams had to drive to Groningen and find the Martinitoren bell tower.  Once there the teams ran up against a roadblock, Counting Bells.  In this roadblock teams had to send one player up the bell tower counting each bell along the way to the top.  Once they were satisfied with the count, they were to show their number to the bell master atop the tower.  The interesting thing here is this, most teams blazed through this getting their count correct on the first attempt.  Once Ericka arrived she scored a massive fail, getting the count wrong 3 times.  This was not some easy task as the tower was tall, the passageways narrow, winding, musty, and Ericka arrived in time to see the contestants all leaving to the next stop quickly.  Ericka broke down into tears.  Brian stood strong though, comforting Ericka.  Even having her take a break and chill before taking on the task once more.  Meanwhile, the rest of the contestants keep sailing through the rest of the leg.  After the teams left the bell tower they had to head to a Vierhuizen de Marne and find a windmill.

Dan and Sam killing it on the links

Finding the windmill brings the next part of this leg, a detour!  The teams could chose to complete one of two tasks, either Farmer’s game or Farmer’s dance.  Sam and Dan chose to go for Farmer’s game as did Meghan and Cheyne.  Ericka is counting bells.  Meghan and Cheyne started out in first but Sam and Dan were on fire here.  The detour required teams to dress in traditional dutch attire and ride bikes to a river crossing where they would strip down to long johns and swim across.  Once through the chilling water and on the other side, teams had to play a game reminiscent of putt putt golf on drugs.  Basically teams had to whack an over sized golf ball to a hole within 8 swings or start over.  They had to finish three wholes.  Meghan was upset to be doing this event because of her dislike for golf, but Cheyne’s positive energy and motivation kept them going until she caught on and they eventually got through it.  Dan and Sam were clearly the pro’s at this sport though and tore through with blazing speed.  Bells, bells, and more bells for Ericka.

Sam and Dan 1st to the Pit stop

Matt and Gary were the first to arrive at farmer’s dance.  Once there they had to ring a bell with a big sledge hammer like you’d see in a circus or carnival.  They did this with ease but once inside they quickly realized they could not handle the dancing and took off for farmer’s game.  The girls chose farmer’s dance as well thinking that either task sounded equally easy.  Once there, though, the bell proved to be too much for them and they chose to hit the links and try farmer’s game as well.

Flight Time struggles to keep the herring down (photo:CBS)

Meanwhile, Flight time and Big EZ roll up and hammer the bell first time of course.  Flight Time and Big EZ use their globe trotting skills of dance and crowd pleasing to complete this portion with ease!  The only sticky spot comes when they had to eat a raw salted herring with onion, Flight Time looked rough.  Heh, he didn’t want to talk about that portion afterwards.  They make it to the pit stop in 3rd after Dan, Sam, Meghan, and Cheyne.  Ericka still counts the bells and gets the number correct on her fourth go at it!

So Ericka and Brian are finally back in the race!  They quickly head to the windmill and get changed.  Brian tells Ericka, “We can catch em babe, c’mon!” They dash out of the windmill knowing they’ve got a lot of distance to cover but fail to read the part about riding a bike to the next event and start walking in their wooden clogs.  LOL, OMG, WTF! Can you mess anything else up today?

Hugglez for the girls... (Photo:CBS)

Matt and Gary, take to the links struggling to get their balls sunk eventually pushing past the event and taking 4th place at the pit stop leaving Maria and Tiffany in their dust. Tiffany and Maria throughout this episode went back and forth between theses two detours a few times.  They racked up at least 75 attempts on ringing the bell and were devastated.  They comforted each other but as the night wore on they were quickly losing strength and will.

Talk about some mental fortitude folks, though, Ericka and Brian as stupid as they were tonight would not give up and walked the entire way to farmer’s dance! Once there they truly back their footing, grounded themselves, and crushed this detour.

Ericka and Brian walking in their clogs (photo: CBS)

Ericka says she fell in love with Brian all over again, admittedly Brian was quite the charmer this episode never letting negativity get them down.  They found someone to lend them bikes after figuring out their mistake and raced to the pit stop to make it there in 5th!  This was all well and good, but Phil told them they’d have to wait an additional 30 minutes sitting out in the penalty box as the clue clearly stated they were to bike to their detour.  Ericka about broke down here, but when all was said and done, Tiffany and Maria gave up the ghost and quit the race giving Ericka and Brian a pass to the next leg! Congrats on a hard fought leg you two.  While I started out with little respect for your team, I must say that your never give up attitude has impressed me and I am certain many others tonight! Kudos!

So what do you think about Tiffany and Maria’s breakdown?  How bout Ericka and Brian, are they for real?  Who do you think will win this season?  How bout Flight Time holding in the herring?  Sound off and leave us a comment below!

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The first 6 stops for #TAR15 (Photo: CBS)

The exciting 2 hour premier of The Amazing Race on CBS was last night bringing two eliminations to elimination station!  To begin the show each team had small segments giving the audience a brief background of them.  As mentioned previously the crew is very diverse and these segments brought up some interesting bits of information.  But the real meat of the matter was the start of the race in which Phil warned the contestants that one team would have a very short Amazing Race experience for when they ran down to their bags and recieved their first clue, they were immediately put into their first challenge.

Eric and Lisa reading the first clue (Photo: CBS)

The first challenge began within seconds of the contestants beginning the race!  What they were to do was find a license plate on a wall of plates which was from the Shinagawa ward in Tokyo, Japan.  This was to be the first pit stop.  Unfortunately for one unlucky team, there would only be enough correct plates to give 11 of the 12 starting teams a chance to continue on with the Amazing Race.  The clue had the Japanese symbol at the top of the card but most of the teams failed to recognize this until they had incorrectly brought Phil different plates.  Eventually there was only two teams left, Eric and Lisa, and Lance and Keri.  Of these teams, Eric and Lisa were the first team eliminated from the race this season.  The couple was embarrassed and humiliated but had some zen words to leave in the end saying how they had to be eliminated to set the others free.

Mike struggles with wasaabi bomb (Photo: CBS)

The first team out was Maria Ho and Tiffany Michelle but once to Tokyo they got in a small spat each girl trying to fill the dominant role.  In Tokyo teams had to work their way to the base of the Tokyo tower which awaited them none other then the Japanese Game Show!  There the teams each had to down a huge wasabi bomb which was just a handful of rice surrounding a tone of wasabi.  This was tough and an extremely good time watching!  If you missed this episode you will certainly want to find some clips of this part!  The teams eventually struggle through with Maria having to eat two bombs one after the other which she did and from there the teams had to venture on to the Hachimangu Shrine bringing along 20 locals with them.  This proved to be a tough task for the girls who lost some of their locals along the way finally arriving to the pit stop without their full group.  Lucky for them this was a non elimination stop!

Continue reading part 2.

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Phil races across America for MS

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Phil Keoghan posing on The Amazing Race (Photo:CBS)

When the teams left Tokyo on their 2nd leg of the Amazing Race, they were headed for Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam!  While at the airport, an interesting thing happened.  But first you need to understand that the two poker ladies had conceived an elaborate bluff in which they told their fellow contestants that they worked with homeless people in need.  They did this in order to garner support and sympathy from the rest of the crew they might not otherwise have if everyone knew the truth about their poker success.  However, fame does have its upsides and downsides as when they were in the airport looking for tickets to Vietnam, a poker fan picked them out of the crowd and came up looking for an autograph which they could not turn down.  The rest of the contestants watched as this episode unfolded and now know the truth behind the girls.  In all honesty, the rest of the contestants had already begun to call the girls shady.  An interesting bit though.  The globetrotters, Herbert “Big Easy” Lang and Nathaniel “Flight Time” Lofton were pulling no shots when it came to secure a ticket.  They used the Globetrotters name recognition to obtain their tickets over fellow contestants.

The Mudman (Photo: CBS)

Once the teams arrived in Vietnam they had to deal with a fruit farm to get their first clue of the night.  Travel to the nearby fruit farm was via bus.  There were two busses which left over an hour apart.  The contestants finding themselves on the 2nd bus at first looked distressed but wound up buying out the remaining seats on the bus by banding together and getting the bus to leave earlier.  The task here was to “fertilize” a tree with what looked like mud.  The tree had a skirt around it with a red marker at the level the contestants had to fill with the mud.  This went well for the teams for the most part with the girls impressed with how sexy two women can be all mudded up.  The girls were running behind in this event due to their speed bump.  The girls had to serve a traditional Vietnamese soup called pho to the dock masters liking before he’d allow them to travel to the fruit farm. Maria had eaten and prepared this soup in her past so this was an ez task for the ladies.  Zev and Justin ran into a snag when Justin tripped and fell into the water near the fruit farm and lost his next clue.  The friends did not realize they had lost the clue until they were on the boat to the next destination and had to return for it. This did put them behind, but they were still ahead of Tiffany and Maria who had to deal with their speed bump.

Tiffany and Mika compete in the duck race (Photo: CBS)

The final event for the night was a duck race road block!  Teams had to heard 150 ducks across a narrow bridge then back again to the starting pen and close them all up inside their pen.  This proved to be quite the challenge for some and the LPM (laughs per minute) meter was sky rocketing.  Ericka had to be the best fun with all the trouble she was having.  She was getting so frustrated with her ducks by the end of the evening she had already decided that she was having duck for dinner that night!  Tiffany Michelle had been around ducks as a child and knew how to handle them so she was able to make up good time for her and Maria.  Once teams concluded this task they were to race to the Bassic River and find the Bassic III Riverboat.  The last team to arrive was Jessica and Garret due to Jessica’s extremely difficulties she had with the duck herding.  Jessica and Garret were the 2nd team eliminated from season 15 of The Amazing Race.

Part one of premier recap

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The Amazing Race 15 kicks off (Photo: CBS)

Tonight on twitter, Tiffany MIchelle a contestant on season 15 of The Amazing Race posted a link to a brand new sneak peek of Amazing Race 15 on youtube!  In it you will get a very appetizing preview of the new season with Phil sending the teams off on their epic journey.  A new twist comes up when Phil lets the contestants know that one team will not even be getting past the start line to their first flight to Japan!  Their first hurdle is a race to find a license plate to the district in Japan the first leg of the journey is destined to end.

You won’t want to miss this 3 minute video with the start to the race played out like you will get to see on Sunday night when the Amazing Race 15 premiers on CBS!  Click below to watch!

For more info:

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