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Folding on a Pair of Detours with Maria and Tiffany of The Amazing Race
by Reg Seeton
 The
intense heat of The Amazing Race was turned down
a notch this past week when the remaining Amazing
Race teams left the scorching sands of Dubai and
touched down in Amsterdam for the following Amazing
leg of the race. However, much like previous seasons
of The Amazing Race, the heat of competition was
turned up during the mid portion of the race,
as the teams encountered the toughest detours
and road blocks to date in the 15th season of
The Amazing Race.
Adding to the heat of the season, professional poker players, Maria Ho and Tiffany Michelle, caught the teams off-guard when each Amazing Race competitor learned that Maria and Tiffany weren't quite what the others perceived them to be at the start of the race. While some Amazing Race teams thought Maria and Tiffany were bluffing their poker persona to gain an advantage, Maria and Tiffany were almost eliminated early in the second leg of The Amazing Race 15 but found new life due to a non-elimination leg. This week, Maria and Tiffany hit a wall when they couldn't make it past both detours and ran out of time when all of the other Amazing race teams hit the mat to continue the race.
Following their elimination, we caught up with Maria and Tiffany to learn more about their Amazing Race strategy, what happened in the last leg that led to their elimination, the dynamics with the other teams, and the turning point for Maria and Tiffany on The Amazing Race.
THE DEADBOLT: So how long did that bell challenge actually take?
MARIA HO: You mean the "ding" the bell, not the bell tower?
THE DEADBOLT: Yeah, hitting the bell.
MARIA: Overall, between both detours, it was over three hours that we kind of spent giving it our best shot. I mean, as you saw at one point, we tallied up to seventy-one attempts on the carnival dinger. We started off there, we spent about twenty minutes until the point we realized we couldn't hit it. We went over to the golf and spent about forty minutes there and obviously went back to the dinger and ended up at the golf.
Unfortunately, by later on in the day, a storm had started rolling in, so there was about 50mph wind going directly into our faces. So even if we had the strength to hit the ball exactly where it needed to go, the wind was just blowing it right back in our faces, which provided for a tough time, as you could see. But yeah, it was over three hours that we were out there in soaking wet long johns trying not to die of hypothermia [laughs].
THE DEADBOLT: Did you think about getting a running start with the hammer?
 TIFFANY
MICHELLE: I figured it seemed like there
had to be a specific technique. I mean, you
saw. We tried seventy-one times. I didn't try
the same time every time. I tried every possible
way and technique that I could think, because
I figured there has to be some way to do this.
But that mallet alone, just to lift it over
your head, it was about forty pounds. So just
to even lift it was a task, which is why some
of our attempts at swinging it down don't look
that strong because it was just so heavy. I
think at one point I might have even backed
up. I think I did maybe try a little bit of
a running start. But believe me, I tried every
possible thing because quitting was not an option
for us that day.
THE DEADBOLT: So when did you guys actually realize it was over? When did it sink in that, "Hey, this is it."?
MARIA: I think that after trying both sides of the detour twice, and going back and forth and back and forth, and just realizing that we knew we had given both sides of the detour everything that we had. It was just at that point where we just really had hit a wall of the amount of energy we had physically exerted up to that point. We didn't feel like we really had that much left in us and also just the elements of the weather. It became too much. It was freezing outside with the wind.
The last that we tried was the golf challenge and we had been doing that for a good hour and the wind was just coming right into our faces and in the opposite direction of where we had to hit the ball. That's where you can see Tiffany and I hugging. We were hugging partially of course because we were very sad and frustrated, but partially because we were just trying to keep each other warm. We were so cold out there. It was at that point where we kind of both looked at each other and just could feel that sense of peace you get when you realize, "We can't do this anymore. We can't give more than we've already given." Sometimes you just have to give in to that feeling and we did.
THE DEADBOLT: When the guy recognized you at the airport earlier in the race, do you think that's when the game turned for you guys?
TIFFANY: What do you mean, turned?
THE DEADBOLT: Well, when he recognized you, it tipped off everyone else. Do you look at that moment as the turning point of where the game really changed for you guys?
 TIFFANY:
I don't necessarily think so. I think that the
poker player thing was a little bit blown out
of proportion. In the long run, nobody ended
up caring what we did for a living. Actually,
Maria's and my career are filled with a lot
of things, poker is just a small aspect of what
we do in addition to performing. I'm specifically
involved with an organization called The Los
Angeles Youth Network that helps to assist and
house homeless youth in Los Angeles. So Maria
and I do a lot of volunteering and fund raising
with a lot of different charity organizations.
We just decided to highlight that aspect, as
compared to something that we felt like could
put a target on our back. Like every other team
highlighted or hit certain strengths or weaknesses
that they had. So whether or not we were poker
players, really, in the long run, didn't matter
to anybody. So even though it was a fun thing
to see us get recognized, as you can tell, Sam
and Dan have become great friends with us anyway
and we became good friends with Brian and Ericka,
Meghan and Cheyne, and the Globetrotters. So
what we did for a profession really didn't end
up mattering to anybody.
THE DEADBOLT: I heard a couple of racers saying that you really didn't connect with anybody. Do you feel that that was part of your downfall, that you couldn't connect with anybody?
MARIA: No. I wouldn't say that that's true at all, and of course everybody is entitled to their own opinion as far as how they felt about us. But Tiffany and I felt for the most part, certain teams that got eliminated earlier, we really didn't have the time to necessarily like them or dislike them. We just didn't have the time to get to know them as people. So we don't have any kind of strong opinions about any of them. Especially about anybody still left in the race because we got to spend the most time with them.
You know, because we got to spend the most time with them because after being through seven legs together, we definitely formed a bond. Like Tiffany just said, with everybody that's still left, and we're still very very close with them now. Those are people, I think, we'll be friends with forever.
TIFFANY: It kind of seemed like the bottom six teams had a bond together and then the top six teams, because obviously, like Maria said, the ones eliminated spent time together and the ones still in the race spent time together. We'll have friends for life between Brian and Ericka, Sam, Dan, Meghan, and Cheyne. We actually all got race tattoos together and had a nice bonding thing. So yeah, not clicking with somebody was definitely far from the case. We have some serious friends for life and we call them our race family.
THE DEADBOLT: Is there anything you wished we saw that didn't get aired?
 TIFFANY:
We were appreciative that we felt like the last
episode showed how much effort we put in. The
Sam and Dan thing, we actually knew from day
one that they were gay. Of course it tried to
paint it like we had crushes on them when in
reality we just really really loved them like
brothers, platonically. So that was kind of
funny for us to watch and say, "Oh! Actually,
no. We knew in Vietnam when they told us that
they were gay." So that was funny.
I think in a hour segment it's hard to show how much time it takes to do a task, or to get somewhere, or how much energy you have to exert. A lot of audiences say, "Oh!" They have their comment and they think things are easy, and it's like, "Wait. But you weren't out there in the Dubai 120 degree weather for an hour searching for water." You know, there are things that don't really translate to television specifically when it comes to time, when it comes to how far you had to run somewhere or how long a task took.
But that's not really something that anybody, except people you did the race with, really understands, which is why we have nothing but respect for everybody from the race. They all get it. They know what went down. They know how hard things were. It's that stuff that doesn't really translate that you might not be able to see as an audience member.
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