Climatic Finish for TAR Asia 2
The Amazing Race Asia Ends for the Final 3 Teams.
The Amazing Race Asia 2 took an interesting turn during the final leg, causing an interesting turn-out for that surprised teams and viewers.
The Amazing Race Asia 2's (TARA 2) last leg kicked off at South Africa, with Marc & Rovilson (Team Phillipines) leading the pack down to Capetown. Within an hour, all three teams found themselves reading their clues that led to the Detour. Adrian (Team Singapore), who also has a hearing disability, decided that this was the leg for the climatic finish while the Malaysian girls acknowledged that the three remaining teams were the only teams to ever win a leg throughout TARA 2.
Marc and Rovilson run out of Retarded Luck
Lucky team Marc and Rovilson finally found themselves at the short end their retarded luck stick when they were unable to find three marked pebbles in a mass of stones at the detour. They switched to building a hand-made radio almost immediately.
Persistence paid off for Adrian and Collin, who always seem so demure throughout tasks and interviews - they found the three marked stones and rushed after the leading team who were having difficulties scoring goals at a football stadium.
Vanessa and Pamela chose the radio task, lagging behind the all-male teams. Accident-prone Vanessa injured herself fiddling with the wires. By the time they had arrived at the football field, the other teams were no longer around.
Skidding in Sand DunesThe teams then road quad bikes in South Africa's sand dunes, which seemed to get the adrenaline running only to be gunned down by tiny egg timers that were disguised as "clue boxes." They had to overturn the timers and wait for the sand to run out before resuming the race.
Again, Marc and Rovilson were the first to find the clue and attempted to throw their close rivals, Adrian and Collin, by pretending to wait out an egg timer. Team Singapore were were strategically following the leading team's footsteps and this worried Marc and Rovilson.
Upon Team Phillipines' disappearance with the clue, Adrian and Collin decided to trust their six senses and check on the overturned bucket that could either have been covering a clue or another egg timer. In the process, Collin's quad bike overturned and landed on him. He later said, "the sand was soft so I did not get hurt," but did not comment about the softness of the quad bike.
When Vanessa and Pamela finally found the clue, the other teams were well on their way to what
seemed to be a park where they had to "guess" their next destination.
Next Destination: Singapore!
Teams had to make their way to Cape Point to the lighthouse keeper who was standing like a statue; he verified their answers and provided with their next clue. They were heading back to Singapore.
Adrian and Collin chased after Marc and Rovilson, and overtook them when Team Phillipines mis-read their clue and went on a wild goose chase around the park. "We overdosed on dummy pills," they said, but were unaware of how severe their overdose was, until much later. Team Malaysia climbed into the cable car that brought them to Cape Point and found themselves driving back to the airport where they were reunited with the alpha-male teams.
At this point in the race, the teams and the viewers from home would already have expected Adrian and Collin to have a massive upper hand over their rival foreigners. It was back to familiar homeland for them. Ironically, though, they found themselves in last place after picking up their first clue; they had forgotten to ask their taxi "to wait for them."
The Flag Finale
Marc and Rovilson raced on and Vanessa and Pamela overtook a stranded Adrian and Collin, rushing deliriously to a Sentosa Island's beach where the teams encountered their final Roadblock. They were to arrange country flags indicating the sequence of legs for the entire TARA 2; this was similar to one of the Amazing Race finales where 2 teams haggled neck to neck for the dash to the finish line.
Vanessa challenged a frazzled Rovilson in the dual, seeming, for once, to be much collected than during previous Roadblocks - she also seemed to be doing better than Rovilson.
Rovilson cracked under pressure, picking up flags that did not belong to TARA 2 while Marc repeatedly cried "No!" into the palms of his hands. Video editing seemed to sway in favour of Vanessa when suddenly Adrian and Collin emerged from no where.
"How is he Adrian with flags?" asked Marc casually.
"Oh," replied Collin even more casually, "I think he is quite good with flags."
"He was like a ninja," explained Marc and Rovilson during the narratives, "He grabbed all the flags, stood in the middle, and began jamming them into their pods."
Within minutes on his first try, Adrian received the most anticipated verdict: "Correct!" while Rovilson and Vanessa puzzled over their repeated "incorrect" tries.
The Final Run to the Finish Line
Team Singapore dashed off to the finish lines by cab, as Vanessa cracked the code. Marc wished he had done the task; he did seem to know the flags better than his team mate but acknowledged that it probably "more frustrating" for Rovilson. Rovilson later agreed.
In the end, the taxi ride ended in Collin and Adrian's favour. It really was Adrian's love for world knowledge and a flag book that his mum had bought him years ago that allowed him to wriggle out of last place and subsequently win the USD100,000 for his team. He said that he never dwelt on his hearing disability and this in itself had led to his achievement.
Vanessa and Pamela arrived second, as overly-enthused second place winners. They seemed oblivious to the fact they were not actually winning anything but were really happy not to arrive last.
When the race favourites finally arrived, they put on brave faces for the camera hiding their overwhelming disappointment as they landed on the mat. Arriving third marked their poorest performance overall, and unfortunately, it happened at the final leg of TARA 2.
