‘The Amazing Race’ will end season in Atlanta, airing Sunday Dec. 11
Amani and Marcus Pollard are in the finals of "The amazing Race" and could win $1 million if they can navigate the final leg in Atlanta, taped in July, 2011. CREDIT: CBS
CBS’s Emmy-winning “The amazing Race” this season has traveled to Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand, Malawi, Denmark, Belgium and Panama. The finale, taped in early July and airing Sunday at 8 p.m., will end in Atlanta.
The final three couples include Pine Mountain married team Amani and Marcus Pollard. Pollard is a former NFL player who spent 14 years in the league as a tight end, retiring in 2008 after playing one game with the Atlanta Falcons. Marcus now coaches high school football. His wife Amani runs a boutique.
The Pollards have shown consistent athleticism and a positive attitude throughout the competition. They finished last during the sixth leg but survived because it was a non-elimination round. The couple finished first during the ninth leg, winning a free future trip to Panama after posing in a bodybuilding competition to honor Belgian native Jean-Claude Van Damme.
The entire experience, Marcus said in an interview before the season premiered, “was more mentally challenging than I thought it would be.”
Last week, in a surprise, the dominant team, pro snowboarders Andy Finch and Tommy Czeschin, had won six of the first 10 legs of the competition but had trouble deciphering a clue in the 11th leg and came in last. two of the other three teams had similar trouble but were fortunate that three of the taxi drivers were working together and helped Amani and Marcus and Cindy Chiang and Ernie Halvorsen make it to the finish line before Andy and Tommy. Props to Jeremy Cline and Sandy Draghi for being the only team to properly figure out that final clue.
Over the course of the competition, Cindy and Ernie have performed the strongest of the remaining three couples, finishing in the top 3 the past five legs.
Since the show debuted in 2001, a few other pairings with direct Georgia ties have participated on “The amazing Race.” if the Pollards win, they’d be the first pair from the state to take home the $1 million prize. (Siblings Justin and Jennifer Young from Stone Mountain finished seventh.)
Jordan Pious, an Emory graduate who still lives in Atlanta, was half of a sibling team that won season 16 last year. [Thank you "zinc" below for reminding me of this. Somehow, it had slipped my porous memory. and at the time, the publicists didn't even clue me about the Atlanta connection until the show had already ended.]
We’ll find out Sunday if homefield advantage helped the Pollards. In July, producers taped at Turner Field and the Margaret Mitchell House before ending the season at the Swan House at the Atlanta History Center.
Other past Georgia participants on the show:
Season four: Monica Ambrose/Sheree Buchanan (Atlanta Falcon wives), 2003, 7th place
Season nine: Wanda Lopez-Rochford (Smyrna, GA)/ Desiree Cifree (mother/daughter team), 2006, 9th place
Season 17: Andie DeKroon/ Jenna Sykes (Birth mother/daughter), 2010, 10th place
On TV
“The amazing Race,” 8 p.m., Sunday, CBS.
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