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TAR Canada 1 Contestants - Jody Mitic and Cory Mitic - Brothers

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walkingpneumonia:
Jody Mitic and Cory Mitic
Brothers
No spoilers please!
       
   


Jody Mitic

Age: 36 (Jan. 3, 1977)
Nickname: n/a
Occupation: Army Sniper (Ret.) / Motivational Speaker
Hometown: Ottawa, ON
Place of Birth: Kitchener, ON
Couldn’t live without: My motorcycle
Strengths: Military training, race car driving, long range firearms
Fears/Phobias: Eating weird stuff
Favourite travel destination: New Zealand

Cory Mitic

Age: 32 (April 14, 1981)
Nickname: n/a
Occupation: Labour Relations Officer
Hometown: Edmonton, AB
Place of Birth: Kitchener, ON
Couldn’t live without: Family, friends, and good food
Good luck charm: My good will towards others
Strengths: Conflict resolution, singing, negotiations
Fears/Phobias: Falling, eating strange things
Favourite travel destination: Our old family cottage

TEAM BIO
Jody was a sniper for the Canadian forces, and while on duty in Afghanistan in 2007, he stepped on a land mine and lost both his legs below the knee. After an extraordinary recovery, Jody was running 5 km charity runs in a little over a year on his new prosthetic feet. “It’s obviously going to be a challenge,” Jody says of his prosthetics, “but we’re going to have to overcome that with determination.”
 
Cory was by Jody’s side during his recovery and then relocated to Alberta to take a job five years ago. The distance has been hard on the brothers and they’re looking forward to re-establishing their strong bond. “We’ll rely on each other to get the job done,” says Cory. “Our interaction will probably be laced with a lot of bleeps for the viewers at home, and comic relief, also quite a bit of fireworks,” says Jody.
 
Within a few months of returning home, Jody was reunited with one of the medics who evacuated him from Afghanistan. The two are now common law partners of five years and have two beautiful girls together. With the birth of his first daughter, Jody vowed to always strive to be a better person, someone his daughter would look up to and be proud to call Dad.
 
Motto: “They are the enemy and we shall destroy them.”
 
How will they plan to win The Race: Focus, hard work, calculated risk.
 
Number one roadblock as team: “Being patient and bringing the intensity down a little bit from red line.”

READ MORE: Jody and Cory ready to push through physical and mental challenges on 'Amazing Race Canada'

walkingpneumonia:
Team photos

georgiapeach:
http://www.youtube.com/v/K2uDevMdS00?version=3&hl

Leafsfan:
Edmonton man looks forward to watching himself in Amazing Race Canada
When word got out at a slow-pitch tournament that Edmonton’s Cory Mitic competed in the first Amazing Race Canada with his brother Jody, the notion of playing baseball almost became an afterthought.

“Everyone was freaking out,” says Cory, 32. “It was kind of nice, actually. People obviously really love that show.”

The depth of that adoration almost gave the show’s executive producer John Brunton a nervous breakdown. In all, more than 20,000 people from across Canada sent in audition tapes when CTV announced it was searching for nine two-member teams to compete in the show’s inaugural season for a grand prize worth $500,000.

“We were just blown away,” says Brunton. “The response was about 10 times bigger than what we had imagined. I think that speaks to the huge fan base there is for the program, and what an appetite there was for us to make the show available to Canada. “There was a pent-up hunger for it.”

While the process of winnowing down the list was daunting and time-consuming, Brunton said selecting Team Mitic was a no-brainer. “Those two brothers represent something very, very special,” he says.

In their audition tape, the pair promised to bring “lots of bleeps, comic relief and fireworks” to the race.

Cory said they delivered on all counts. “People are in for some entertaining TV,” he predicts, laughing.

He said spending 24/7 with Jody, who lives in Ottawa, strengthened their already-strong bonds, but it also gave him a deeper appreciation of the challenges his older brother faces every day.

In 2007, Jody, now 36, was a master sniper with the Canadian Forces on deployment to Afghanistan. While on patrol, he stepped on an explosive device and suffered catastrophic injuries, losing both of his legs below the knee.

“I had a moment, well, more than a moment, really, where I was pretty angry (when I heard the news),” recalls Cory. “I think it was about five or six hours later I was watching the news, and was reminded that soldiers were coming back, dead. It wasn’t a rare thing, either; it seemed like every week or every other week soldiers were flown back in a coffin. And that wasn’t going to be the case for Jody. He was alive. He was still here.

“I knew he was strong-minded and physically fit. And I knew it was something we could get through.”

Cory was living in Toronto at the time and spent countless hours by Jody’s side during his recovery and rehabilitation. A year later, the brothers took part in a five-kilometre charity run together, after Jody was fitted with his prosthetic feet. Cory flew back to Toronto specifically to attend the event; by then, he had moved to Edmonton to take a job as a labour relations officer with the Health Sciences Association of Alberta.

He said going into the race, the pair had a motto, one that had served them well during Jody’s recovery — never quit.

Their biggest challenge was keeping on top of potential skin breakdown issues caused by Jody’s prosthetics.

“Something quite small could end up being pretty big if we weren’t careful, especially when you’re on your feet so much and running so hard.”

They bickered occasionally — they are brothers, after all — but they always made sure to focus on the task at hand, while still taking the time to cherish what they knew was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

“During the race, I was constantly thinking: ‘Is this really happening?’ It was pretty hard to believe, actually. We felt very fortunate to be picked as a team.”

Brunton said the Canadian version essentially follows the same format as its Emmy-award-winning counterpart in the U.S., with the requisite U-turns, road blocks and fast-forward passes. In a uniquely Canadian twist, however, Olympic gold medallist and host Jon Montgomery will also participate, demonstrating some of the daring challenges the racers will have to face. Teams will have criss-crossed 23,000 kilometres of the Canadian countryside by the time they cross the finish line.

Filming took place in May, when it was still winter in the far north.

“One day we were up to our eyeballs in snow and two days later we were experiencing 80-degree Fahrenheit weather,” he says, laughing.

He says viewers will see teams travel through urban centres as well as to the most remote outposts in the land, all while exploring the country’s broad cultural and ethnic diversity, wildlife and iconic landmarks.

There is already talk about the possibility for Season 2, Brunton says, which may take teams to the South Pole, through the Americas and back to Canada. Or, perhaps through the Commonwealth countries, from India to parts of Africa.

“There are a lot of exciting possibilities for the future,” says Brunton, “but for the first season we decided to wrap ourselves around the flag.”

Cory, meanwhile, along with his new-found friends from the recent ball tournament, plans to meet at the Central Social Hall (10909 Jasper Ave.) to watch the first episode. Anyone is welcome to join them, he says, although he admits to being more than a little nervous.

“I don’t know to describe it. I’m kind of uneasy, but not in a bad way. It’s going to be strange to watch myself on TV, and especially to see how they edit it. There are nine teams, and it’s an hour-long episode.

“That’s a lot of editing.”

Source:http://www.edmontonjournal.com/entertainment/television/Edmonton+looks+forward+watching+himself/8652694/story.html

Alenaveda:
FROM CTV.CA:
http://www.ctv.ca/TheAmazingRaceCanada/Articles/Articles/TARC_Jody_Cory_finale_interview.aspx

'Amazing Race Canada' runners-up Jody and Cory say inspiring others puts loss in perspective
By Sheri Block - 9/17/2013 8:30:18 AM

Jody and Cory Mitic wish they would’ve won “The Amazing Race Canada” but are consoled by the fact they’ve been able to inspire so many people along the way.
 
The brothers came in second place on Monday night’s finale, behind father and son team Tim Hague Sr. and Tim Hague Jr.
 
Both teams overcame adversities along the way – Jody lost both of his legs below the knee after stepping on a landmine in Afghanistan in 2007 and ran the “Race” with prosthetic feet, and Tim Sr. was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease three years ago.
 
“How many people are going to have Parkinson’s and go, ‘That guy’s winning The Amazing Race? And he has Parkinson’s? Why am I not out doing things?’” says Jody, who adds he has received a lot of e-mails from people who have told him they are ordering running feet or a running leg and want to run with him.

“There’s so many people who are getting to do good things now because someone is setting an example so that consoles me a little bit. It helps me put things in perspective.”
 
Even though the team arrived at the final Roadblock challenge in Toronto in second place (behind Vanessa and Celina), Cory struggled with the task that required matching all the flowers and flags to the provinces and territories they had visited along the way. 
 
“It was rough. The way it worked is if you got one wrong they wouldn’t tell you that you got nine right so you’re second guessing even the ones you got right,” says Cory.
 

Each of the greeters at the Pit Stop had worn their respective province or territory’s flower and each of the flags was printed on the clues at the beginning of the leg, but Jody and Cory admit they didn’t anticipate a memory challenge of this sort.

“Cory did study the flags and I know the flags, we studied the order of the prime ministers, we studied different geography and the order Confederation came together but we never touched on flowers until we were in Newfoundland,” says Jody.
 
The team was still feeling confident they could pull it off when Tim and Tim arrived after them but that all changed when Tim Sr. finished the task on the second try and headed with his son to the Pit Stop.
 
“When they left and Cory came out I was like, ‘Dude they’ve only been gone 15 minutes let’s go, we’re going to catch them and then it’s go to the finish line’ (so) we still held out hope.”

But when they arrived at Olympic Island via a ferry, with Vanessa and Celina right behind, Tim and Tim had already crossed the finish line.
 
“When we lost, I was doing my best to think, it’s awesome we got to second and everything, but it’s like being the guy on the podium with the silver medal,” says Jody.
 
“Except we don’t get a medal,” adds Cory with a laugh.
 
“We’re proud to be there but we wanted the gold,” says Jody.
 
They may not have won the top prize, but the brothers have gained something else – a chance to spend time together as Jody lives in Ottawa and Cory moved to Edmonton five years ago for work.

“We were always close . . . but spending that time together, we talk on the phone every other day now and that wasn’t happening. It’s a big change,” says Cory.
 
“His work is so busy and I’m trying to live my life and be a dad and find a new job and reinvent myself because I tell everyone the day I stepped on the bomb, that guy is gone . . . but one thing we always talked about as kids is we should work together.”
 
The two now have plans to do their own television show.
 
“Doing (the ‘Race’) together now, we’re like ‘let’s work together now, let’s do this.’ We’ll make a company called ‘Team Mitic’ if we have to. We pitched a show and we’ll see how it goes,” says Jody.

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