The Amazing Race > The Racers
TAR 16: Joe Wang and Heidi Wang--Married
slayton:
--- Quote ---The Amazing Race 16: Exclusive Interview with Joe and Heidi Wang
Posted on 03/15/2010 by Gina in The Amazing Race and Cast Interviews
by Gina Scarpa
On last night's episode of The Amazing Race, the teams were given the opportunity to U-Turn somebody else. That means that the team that receives the U-Turn must complete both Detours before moving on. Louie and Michael, who were in first place, targeted Joe and Heidi, who were close behind them. Joe and Heidi were faced with a morse code challenge that proved too difficult and were eliminated from the race. Today, the couple spoke to RealityWanted about how seriously they took the race, their alliance with Steve and Allie, and their feelings about the way they went out.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Whose idea was it to try out for The Amazing Race and how did you end up becoming a part of the show this season?
A. Joe: We were approached with the opportunity to go on the race. We applied like everyone else did competing with all these teams. We're honored that the race selected us
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: How did you feel leaving your family behind to go on the race?
A. Joe: That was one of the biggest challenges. We have close family. My mom was helping us with the kids.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Did you do a lot of preparation before the show?
A. Joe: We did a lot of endurance things like jet skiing, parasailing, rock climbing.
A. Heidi: Joe and I took this really seriously. We trained, we went running 3 times a week before the kids woke up for school. I got lasic eye surgery. I studied maps and atlases every night before I went to bed and we actually bought the entire series of The Amazing Race on Ebay and watched it every night. We used it as game time review. We learned so many things from previous contestants
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Any favorite past contestants?
A. Joe: We liked season 5's Chip and Kim. They were very jolly and competitive by nature.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: You worked with a few different teams, mainly Steve and Allie. Were you planning to stick with them or were you going to cut them loose when the time was right?
A. Joe: Steve and I are both competitors. He's a professional baseball coach. I played a lot of sports. We said, right now, we're working together but it's a very complex race. We knew at any given point that we would race on our own.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Were you surprised that Louie and Michael U-Turned you as opposed to Steve or Allie?
A. Joe: I think being U-Turned is definitely a surprise. We were running ahead and typically, when I've seen U-Turns, it's the second to last team. They don't want that team behind them to catch up to them. If you're in the front of the pack, you usually just keep going because you don't wanna create negative vibes.
A. Heidi: They had the opportunity to u-turn anybody. They didn't have to choose between us or Steve and Allie.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Joe, do you think that the comment you made on the bus is the reason they U-Turned you or do you think they had already planned to do it if the opportunity arose?
A. Joe: They said that we were a threat and even with my knee, I was going to push through it. There were a lot of things said on camera and off camera but it's how people portray it.
A. Heidi: In every interview that we did, we never said anything bad about any of the other teams. It's really unfortunate that the U-Turn came and we weren't able to complete the task.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: How difficult was it to watch last night's episode?
A. Heidi: It was really hard with our family. This was the first time that we just had a private viewing with out immediate family. Our kids think of us as our heroes. They thought for sure we would make it to the final three. There were teardrops everywhere.
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: What are you up to now? What has life been like since you've been home?
A. Heidi: It is just crazy! Joe recently resigned from his steady job and we're just evaluating and reviewing so many different opportunities that have come our way.
--- End quote ---
http://www.realitywanted.com/newsitem/3029-the-amazing-race-16-exclusive-interview-with-joe-and-heidi-wang
2old4tech:
--- Quote ---Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Did you do a lot of preparation before the show?
A. Joe: We did a lot of endurance things like jet skiing, parasailing, rock climbing.
A. Heidi: Joe and I took this really seriously. We trained, we went running 3 times a week before the kids woke up for school. I got lasic eye surgery. I studied maps and atlases every night before I went to bed and we actually bought the entire series of The Amazing Race on Ebay and watched it every night. We used it as game time review. We learned so many things from previous contestants
--- End quote ---
???
slayton:
--- Quote ---
Joe & Heidi ('The Amazing Race')
Monday, March 15 2010, 2:42pm EDT
By Lara Martin, News Editor
Married couple Joe and Heidi Wang had a solid start on last night's episode of The Amazing Race, completing the detour challenge in third place. However, their hopes of making it another week were left in the balance when detectives Louie and Michael targeted them with a Blind U-Turn, meaning the duo had to go back and complete a second detour task. After several unsuccessful attempts to crack the Morse Code challenge, they became the fourth team to exit the race. We gave them a call to chat about the experience.
How does it feel to be eliminated at this stage?
Heidi: "Very sad, very, very sad. We had viewing parties in the past every weekend, but last night we made it a private affair to be with our family. The kids were crying and very emotional."
Joe: "And of course they had no clue. They were looking at the race and thinking we were in the lead, having finished the crawl ahead of everybody else. My son said, 'How come you have to do another one? I don't get it'. We had to explain to him what a U-Turn means and what it means in the game."
Did you know immediately who had set the U-Turn?
Joe: "Absolutely because we were already in the top three and had just finished about 10 or 15 minutes behind the detectives, and Steve and Allie where right in front of us. For it being blind, it wasn't really blind! I think they wanted us to know!"
What was your initial reaction?
Joe: "The initial reaction was, 'Oh my God'. We had just accomplished this physical endurance task..."
Heidi: "That crawl was not easy! The gun was very heavy, and you had all this gear on as you crawled under the barbed wire, and to and from the station was a long way."
Joe: "We're determined individuals so we looked at it and said, 'Let's just go after this and get this done'. We knew it would be a difficult task, and when we first saw the clue I had mentioned to Heidi that we didn't have any training in Morse Code."
Why do you think Louie and Michael chose you?
Joe: "Based on some of the interviews we've seen, they thought we were a threat."
Heidi: "I think honestly, deep down they thought we were a strong, competitive team, which in itself is a compliment and we're privileged to have that as our legacy. I think it's because Joe and I have strong communication, a good history, and we didn't really fight or have those emotional, dramatic episodes that maybe some other teams had."
How long were you out there?
Joe: "We were there for close to six hours trying to figure it out. You could see that because it got darker, the temperature dropped dramatically and it started raining. We hadn't had anything to eat since we left the pitstart except for that baguette."
Heidi: "It was winter time in Europe so it was freezing, and then it started to rain and we were just wearing those war outfits they gave us. It was really cold."
Joe: "We were trying to crack the code by thinking creatively. I was holding Heidi because her whole body was shivering and we were coming up with random statements that we thought might fit, but none of them did."
Was it a mutual decision to call it quits?
Joe: "We were constantly thinking and writing down what the statement could be. One of the things about the race is you never know when a non-elimination piece is going to come. We didn't throw up any white flags or anything."
Obviously we thought you might have a chance with Brent and Caite having to go back and Jordan and Jeff struggling - were you aware of what was happening with the other teams?
Joe: "We were aware of Jordan and Jeff because they had to come through to do their speedbump, but we didn't know about Brent and Caite. It was a light for us when we saw Jordan and Jeff, and we continued to push along. I remember when we saw them we gave about ten more statements, but then we saw them crawling out and thought we might be in big trouble."
Do you think you would have eventually got the message if you kept trying?
Joe: "When Phil came over and told us we were looking for, 'We will prevail. Viva la France', we both looked at each other and said there's no way! The code itself rambled on and we didn't know where the breakage was."
Heidi: "It was a running message with no stop or start - it just kept going over and over. We must have listened to it hundreds of times with the airplanes flying overhead and the bombs exploding and the shooting. You would lose your train of thought and couldn't hear it. It was a challenge that there was no preparation for."
Is there anything you would change about the whole experience?
Joe: "I felt like we tried to run the race very fairly. We always talked great things about all the other teams."
Heidi: "We always spoke very highly of the other competitors, and if we knew they were strong in certain aspects we would say that in our interviews. We never said anything bad-spirited or negative. I think we played it fair, and some of the things that Joe said that were maybe confident came out like he was offending other people. It's funny though, we came out of this and it's almost like he got the villain role! I think it's funny and very humorous and we're just running with it and enjoying it!"
--- End quote ---
http://www.digitalspy.com/ustv/s66/the-amazing-race/interviews/a208698/joe--heidi-the-amazing-race.html
DeafRacer:
Q. Gina, RealityWanted: Were you surprised that Louie and Michael U-Turned you as opposed to Steve or Allie?
A. Joe: I think being U-Turned is definitely a surprise. We were running ahead and typically, when I've seen U-Turns, it's the second to last team. They don't want that team behind them to catch up to them. If you're in the front of the pack, you usually just keep going because you don't wanna create negative vibes.
A. Heidi: They had the opportunity to u-turn anybody. They didn't have to choose between us or Steve and Allie.
Margie & Luke didn't do that! :lol3: We were the third team to be at the U-Turn mat when we u-turned Amanda & Kris. I guess we created a new strategy that it doesn't have to be for a second to last team to u-turn a last team. :lol:
slayton:
Luke, in fairness they prefaced it with the word "typically."
You & Margie and Tammy & Victor were atypical.
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