On Sunday night, Oscar and Billy Brownless, Brooke McClymont and Adam Eckersley, and Tai and Logan Tuivasa faced off in the final leg of The Amazing Race Australia: Celebrity Edition.
Starting the race together in Bangkok, the three teams jostled for first position throughout the final leg. But it was brothers Tai ‘Bam Bam’ and Logan Tuivasa who took out the top spot, and the $100,000 for their chosen charity, the Sydney Region Aboriginal Corporation.
“I had never really done anything like this before,” Tai told 10 Play. “It was kind of out of my comfort zone but the opportunity to travel the world and play this game with my brother was one that I wasn’t going to miss.
“[We] definitely had to take it, and it ended up being one of the best experiences I’ve had in my life, it was awesome,” he continued.
https://www.instagram.com/bambamtuivasa/p/DAfoKqWyED_/?hl=en
“I was the same,” Logan added, “just to have that experience, which was probably the best of my life.”
“I had to go back and talk with the boss because looking after all these kids was not going to be easy for the whole time I was on the race. We both agreed that it was one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities and I’m glad we did it.”
Despite a rocky start, after their close call with elimination in the very first leg of the race the brothers realised they needed to “pull our socks up and have a crack”, and from then on were landing on the Pit Stop mat at the front of the pack.
“After the first leg we were a bit ‘how ya goin’,” Logan said. “By the second and third we thought we might just be in with a chance. Coming first on the second leg and then backing that up with second, we thought we might have a chance at winning this.”
https://www.instagram.com/amazingraceau/p/C_mhOF6yn1Z/
“I knew we were going to do pretty good,” Tai said. “I’ve travelled the world a couple of times now and we’re all about vibes. We’re people’s people so I think it became really easy, we just talked to everyone and made our way through. It was really cool, it was a great experience.”
But the pointy end of the competition started to heat up, and the boys were feeling the pressure as the finish line was in sight.
“It got a bit harder towards the end, Logan was missing his kids more and more, little things would get to you,” Tai explained. “It definitely is challenging, it’s not just holidays and rainbows but we got there in the end and, like I said, we had some of the best times we’ve had in a very long time.”
https://www.instagram.com/amazingraceau/p/DAkiQ-VSkQM/
After a few tough challenges, all three teams hit the dreaded puzzle which tests them on their memory of the whole journey they had taken throughout the race. In each country they had visited, there were symbols representing a challenge or a location they had been to. Teams had to arrange the symbols in chronological order before heading to the final Pit Stop.
“It was good that Logan was there or I would have been f**ked,” Tai said, laughing. “I was about to throw the blocks off the building. I kind of gave up and thought you know what Logs? This is up to you.
“Thankfully Logan was there and his patience got us over the line. I think he got us through a few challenges where I just put my hands up like, you know what? I just want to fight someone.”
“They didn’t make it easy, that’s for sure,” Logan added.
Managing to slip past Billy, Oscar, Brooke, and Adam, the brothers were in first place heading to the final Pit Stop. “We knew we were in first place but, in this race, you can never get too far ahead of yourself,” Tai said, adding that it wasn’t until Beau actually said the words that they had won that it really set in.
Tai and Logan were on the race competing on behalf of the Sydney Region Aboriginal Corporation, a community-controlled not-for-profit whose mission is to improve the health, social, emotional, and economic well-being of Aboriginal people.
“It’s going to be awesome, [SRAC] does a lot of work with kids from the area, from Western Sydney, and they take a lot of football gear and stuff out to the Aboriginal communities, hand them out and do football days,” Tai said.
“I’m really looking forward to seeing where they get to now, and how far out in the community they can reach. That’s really important to me so I’m pumped about that.”
