Amazing Race fish challenge too much
Toronto duo eliminated after time lost to unsuccessful filleting
While Laura Takahashi and Jackie Skinner’s journey on The Amazing Race Canada started on a beach in Nicaragua when they got the call they would be on the show, it ended in Hong Kong when the duo were last to check in at the Pit Stop. Postmedia caught up with the married couple from Toronto to find out their highs and lows on the Race.
Q: You’ve travelled extensively together. How was this different?
Laura Takahashi: I think that was one of the biggest surprises. Something we didn’t really identify as part of our characteristics is how organized, prepared and planned we are when we go travelling … But then, when you get to the Race and you don’t know where you’re going, what you’re going to be doing, it adds this whole element where you’re in-between fear and excitement. Certain times it’s fear and certain times it’s absolutely thrilling. But having been through the Race, the thrilling part of it is something you can’t get from anything else.
Q: What was one of the high points for you?
LT: Definitely the high point of my Race experience was really all the moments I shared with Jackie where she was just so encouraging. I have a little bit of demon in myself where I am hard on myself. When I was building the chair in Tofino and when we got set back on the fish challenge, I was having a really hard time dealing with the pressure. Jackie was really good about encouraging me and listening to me and lifting me up to go on. I really value that and I really treasure the fact that we didn’t crumble and we never got at each other’s throats … If you’re not racing together,
you’re racing alone.
Q: Jackie, what was a low point for you?
Jackie Skinner: Actually the fish in Tofino was a moment. I think we were there for two and a half, three hours … When we ran out of fish doing the filleting, we were basically stuck 100 per cent on this sorting-the-- fish thing. We both had no idea about fish … Laura normally is my leader in life, so when she looked at me and she was, ‘I completely don’t know,’ I was, ‘I have to be the one to help get through this’ … Anything past that was bonus for us in our minds because we felt like at that moment we were probably going home. Q: Any thoughts of switching over during the Detour in Hong Kong? JS: It could have been 20 minutes, a half-hour away from where we were. And getting cabs in Hong Kong was extremely difficult. All of those things are going through your mind: how many teams are over there? Now we are going to be at the back of that line? And then we did see Sukhi and Jinder at one point, running through the market. We did talk about it a little bit before, but when we saw them, we were like, ‘No, it’s on. We’ll just go and race with the two of them.’ We kind of knew it was down to the two of us, so we just gave it all we had and went for it. Q: How did you prepare to be on the show? JS: We did as much as possible … We did lots of yoga, lots of weight training … We went rock climbing … I learned how to tie all these crazy knots, from my brother-in-law who is a firefighter. We did everything we could have done. We took dance lessons … We pushed ourselves to do things that we wouldn’t have done. And we moved our couch away from our TV and we set up a gym in front of our TV. We forced ourselves. It was, ‘If we are watching TV, we are working out.’ But the couch went back as soon as we were off (the show). ‘Let’s put that couch back.’ (Laughs)