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The Amazing Race 30: Meet the Most Competitive Cast Yet
You've got an NBA champ, an Indy 500 champ... and goat yoga supermoms
Big Brother 19's Cody and Jessica were the first team announced for The Amazing Race 30, but they won't be the only well-known faces traveling around the world. Season 30 also includes competitive eater Joey Chestnut, NBA champion Shawn Marion, Indy 500 winner Alex Rossi, and Winter X Games medalists Jen Hudak and Kristi Leskinen, TV Guide has learned.
"Our goal in Season 30 was to pick the most competitive teams in the history of The Amazing Race," host Phil Keoghan tells TV Guide. "If you look on paper at who we have lined up at the starting line this season, you will see we have teams that are the best of the best in their chosen field, hot shots -- and hot dogs -- in their chosen fields. And then there are a few wild cards in there."
Those wild cards include a pair of supermoms who created goat yoga, a couple from the Yale Debate Team, two violinists from the singing string quartet Well Strung and more.
"One of the things I'm interested to see this season is what happens when you have some NBA All-Stars and they go up against some supermoms who are used to doing goat yoga," Keoghan says. "I'm not saying that the athletic abilities of two supermoms doing yoga can compete with NBA players, but I am saying that there's something about Amazing Race that's a great equalizer. It's not just about being strong or fit or agile. There is a lot of luck involved and there's a lot of cognitive power that you need to have and resilience, being able to make smart decisions while you're really jet-lagged."
Chestnut, who won his 10th Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest this year, is partnered with fellow competitive eater Tim Janus. Marion will race with fellow NBA All-Star Cedric Ceballos, while Rossi is teamed up with fellow IndyCar driver Conor Daly.
Season 30 will kick off in Washington Square Park in New York City and the first stop is Iceland, where teams will traverse a canyon above the Geitargljufur River. The season will cover 10 countries, 21 cities and more than 29,000 miles.
Meet the racers below. The Amazing Race 30 premieres on Wednesday, Jan. 3 at 8/7c on CBS.
(Full disclosure: TV Guide is owned by CBS.)