Amazing Race's Aly and Steve: The Flat Tire Was the Nail in the Coffin

It was a long, sad demise for Aly and Steve on Friday's two-part Amazing Race. After getting a flat in the middle of the Namibian desert and coming in last on a non-elimination leg, the Olympic speed skater and bobsledder fell further behind on the next leg, highlighted (or low-lighted?) by Steve walking in the opposite direction looking for their Roadblock briefcase, that Laura and Tyler U-Turning them was probably unnecessary. "It was just two hours of the twisting of the knife," Steve jokes to TVGuide.com. Did they have any chance of catching up? How did Steve miss the briefcase so badly? See what they say below.

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It's safe to say you knew you were last.
Aly: Yeah, we didn't see any other team the entire day, so that in and of itself gave us confirmation that we were far behind.

You didn't seem surprised to be U-Turned, but was that adding insult to injury?
Steve: We were expecting to be U-Turned. We were actually expecting to be U-Turned by Tyler and Laura, so that played out exactly like we imagined.

Where do you think it started to go wrong? The hut Roadblock the first leg? The flat tire?
Aly: In my opinion, it was the hut. They didn't air it, but I was pushing Steve to do it, and he was pushing me to do it. So I said, "OK, fine, I'll do it." The Roadblock was interesting because for some reason, the two bushmen people who were helping me kept telling me to dig holes. I dug like twice as many holes than the other teams and I was like, "What the hell?!"
Steve: They were really good holes though. [Laughs]
Aly: My hut isn't going anywhere! That hut is sturdy!
Steve: It's probably still there. The flat tire didn't help either. That was kind of the nail in the coffin.
Aly: It was just one thing after another after another. And then we wanted to do the feeding of the pack of dogs, but it was taken, so we had to do the other one.

Do you think it was fair that you were forced to do the elephant Detour instead of just waiting for the dog one? Was that an option, to wait?
Steve: Those were the rules, and everyone had to play by them. Unfortunately, we came out of the Roadblock fourth. If we had waited a little bit and done the pack, I think we would've been done a little faster, but we still had that flat tire.

That sucked for you guys because Mike and Rochelle were last out of the Roadblock, but they were allowed to do the dogs because everyone else was done with it.
Aly: Yeah. That one took like five or 10 minutes and ours took 45 minutes to an hour. It was a huge difference. We had no idea, but that's the nature of the game. And then we got a flat tire!

You were only 20 minutes behind after the first leg, so it seemed feasible that you could catch up, even with the Speed Bump.
Steve: I think we definitely had opportunities to catch up. We just didn't take advantage of them. We got lost the second day. ... [The Speed Bump] took maybe like 10 minutes. It just seems so much longer when you know you're already behind and you're trying to catch up. Even five minutes seems like an eternity. ... And then I ran miles in the wrong direction looking for the box, which didn't help. Like Aly said, it was one thing after another.
Aly: He wasn't wearing his glasses that day. [Laughs]

What happened there? You said you took your eye off the briefcase as it landed.
Steve: Yeah. I watched it until it almost hit the ground. They dropped it pretty far out there. There was a pretty strong cross wind and I took my eye off of it before it hit the ground, and that was enough time to blow it in a much different direction than I thought it did. I just kept walking hoping I would get to it, but it was in the complete opposite direction.

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You guys should've switched Roadblocks.
Aly: [Laughs] Honestly, I think if Steve had done the hut and if I had done the skybox, we would've been solid. That probably would've been more ideal if we had done the opposite ones, but we didn't!

Aly kept saying you were too calm, Steve. Did you ever lose it that we didn't see?
Steve: No, I don't think so.
Aly: He would say a couple comments, like, "Well, do you wanna drive?" But he says it in a way that you're like, "Oh, what a sweetheart." But I'm like on fire on the inside. [Laughs] When we were tracking the elephants, I got distracted, so that was my fault and he got a little upset with me.
Steve: Most of the time she was right. In terms of staying calm and keeping a level head, that's how I approach everything. If you do see me flip out, there is something very, very wrong. I think I was able to grasp that. As much fun and as big of a competition as it was, it was still a game. The situations that we got ourselves into, I just kind of looked at the big picture.
Aly: He was definitely stronger in that aspect than I was. I was more emotionally invested. I was like, "This is so not OK!" And he'd be like, "It's all good!" It's cool. We balance each other out that way.

Do you think fatigue played a part?
Aly: No, I wouldn't say that. There are so many factors that the viewers don't really know. We were hungry, we were sleep-deprived. ... There's a lot going on and all the teams that were left are strong teams. We did feel a bit more pressure, I guess, and a sense of urgency, but all the teams are dealing with that as well.
Steve: I don't think one of those factors affected us negatively. It's just a hard thing to do. It's a game, but it puts you in really stressful situations.
Aly: Steve and I didn't prepare for getting a flat tire in Africa!

What do you think of the blind date twist?
Aly: I think it was an interesting way to change up the show. Unfortunately, it didn't really work out because this isn't really a show people go on to find love. Some of them had said early on in the season, "How can you really get to know each other when you're under these ridiculous circumstances and you're at each other's throats since Day 1?" I kind of wish it was a regular season, personally. I think we all forgot half the teams were blind dates after a couple of legs.
Steve: Granted it was only a couple of weeks, but those blind date couples were together 24/7 for the entire time, so they saw each other at their worst. So they found out pretty quickly if there was anything there.

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What are you up to now? Are you training?
Aly: We are figuring things out. Neither of us are training right now. We're just trying to see what the next step is.
Steve: We haven't ruled out [competing].
Aly: We've been getting a lot of love from fans. ... We'd love to do come back and do [all-stars].
Steve: Yeah, we definitely feel like we have unfinished business.

The Amazing Race airs Fridays at 8/7c on CBS.

(Full disclosure: TVGuide.com is owned by CBS.)

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