2. Team Extreme 2
3. Team Well Strung 4
4. Team Indycar 5
=5. Team Yale 5.5
=5. Team Slam Dunk 5.5
=7. Team Ocean Rescue 6.5
=7. Team Chomp 6.5
9. The Firefighters 8.5
10. Team Goat Yoga 10 (eliminated in Antwerp)
It is very clear that team BB are pulling ahead, with a very strong performance and win in Antwerp - I had some doubts about them after their costly error in the first leg which costed them the win there, but it is clear that some teams have clearly learnt from their mistakes and have improved in terms of navigation - whilst the other teams that struggled have clearly not done so. It was very clear from the moment they got out of the chocolate shop in Antwerp and had to go to the first road block - it is a 1.8 km walk, according to Google maps, that's an 22 minute walk. The teams were given plenty of money for this leg of the race, US$272 in fact - so there was nothing to stop them from jumping in a taxi to turn that 22 minute walk into a very short taxi ride, a difference that could be crucial when teams are so close to each other. They could have even bought some Belgian chocolates on the way to give them more energy to run this leg. I am disappointed that team Extreme had navigation errors that slowed them down on this leg on the way to the Grote Markt (for the head to head), otherwise, they could have won yet another leg. But what about team Slam Dunk? Wow, talk about redemption - I was all ready to write them off after the last leg, but they powered through on the difficult Old Print task which required great attention to detail (which was where they really struggled back in leg 1, with spelling the long word Ingólfstorg).
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| An old photo from the time I worked in Belgium |
Goodbye team Goat Yoga, baaaye baaaye.
Oh dear. What a shame, I was beginning to like this team but clearly their luck ran out in leg 2. Where did it all go wrong for them in Antwerp, given that they were basically tied with all the other teams as they got the clue at the chocolate shop and they didn't have any problems at the Sky Climb. Well, firstly they chose the detour that took far longer - the teams at the Old Print task finished it a lot faster than those who chose the Diamond Glint task. But you really couldn't blame them for making a bad decision, there was really nothing to suggest on the clue which detour was going to be easier, it was a 50-50 luck of the draw as whether you chose the easier detour. They struggled with that detour like most teams and were then up against Henry at the head to head: after having been punished through that grueling course six times, Henry was not going to lose against April in order to stay in the race. They were sunk the moment they chose the harder detour - but let's face it, the head to head was a physically demanding task and it was really between them and team Yale when it came down to it. Given how exhausted Henry was after having lost so many times, it could have gone either way. TAR does often give racers physically demanding tasks, but I would have liked to have seen a greater element of skill involved in the frites race, rather than getting away with just brute strength. Yeah there was some steering involved, but it was clear that the two weakest teams were on the chopping block with so many physically strong racers in this season. April made a real valiant effort going twice in a row, it was definitely the right decision to make her do it again as there was the advantage of knowing how the steering felt like, but it was not enough of an advantage to keep them in the race.
Navigation, directions, Dutch and asking for help
How on earth did so many teams get so lost in Antwerp? The fact is you are in a city where most of the people speak English fluently - all you have to do is stop any stranger and ask for help. Perhaps the elderly might struggle with English, but really anyone under the age of 50 would probably speak some English and most probably very well. The racers who did ask for directions or jumped into a taxi had little problems communicating - even when given a clue in Dutch, they had no problems asking random people to help them translate the clue into English. What I am aghast though, is the way nobody made any effort to even speak a word of Dutch whilst in Antwerp - before you start bitching that it is Flemish and not Dutch, it's practically the same language and even the Flemish people of Belgium will tell you that they are speaking a Flemish dialect of Dutch. The worst part was when team Well Strung said, "let's find someone who speaks this language" rather than "someone who speaks Dutch" - good grief, they clearly had no idea what language was spoken in Antwerp nor could they even recognize that the clue was written in Dutch, oh dear. Come on! At least learn to say hello and thank you in Dutch, it is not difficult but not a single word a foreign language from anyone in the first two legs? You're in someone else's country, make the effort to be polite. I'm not asking you to speak the language, just try to say a few words like goedde morgen and dank je wel. They are going to Morocco in the next leg and I'd love to see the teams really struggle with the language barrier there as they are probably not going to get away with just English in Morocco!
Actually, I was surprised that they were talking about it as if it was something so new - then I realized, of course, it has been done in other versions of TAR that I have watched where it is known as either the Face Off, 对抗, Duel, Double Battle or Versus. The hardcore TAR fans can read the full details of how it is done in other versions of TAR in other countries here. There were in fact two Face Offs in the most recent season of TAR Canada, S5. The only difference with this version is that there is no coming back from losing the head to head, team Goat Yoga were eliminated after they lost to the Firefighters. In the other versions, the Face Off would come in the middle of the leg and usually the team that loses the Face Off would be subjected to a time penalty of 15 minutes - they would then have to turn over an hour glass and wait for the sand to run out before they can continue racing. It is frustrating for the losing team but at least they may not be eliminated because there are still other tasks awaiting them and there's still a lot to do before getting to the pit stop. Do I like the Head to Head? Well, yes and no. This is not a new concept in any case, it has been done before, but I'd like to give the losing team a chance at redemption rather than make them face instant elimination on the spot after losing (like in the other versions of TAR). They could have at least made the pit stop somewhere else in Antwerp, to create the possibility of a team getting very lost on the way to the pit stop (which did happen to team BB in leg 1 in Reykjavik).
Surely we need more rules in the Head to Head frites race.
We saw loads of collisions and accidents in the frites race at the Head to Head, not that I am suggesting that any of the accidents were caused deliberately out of malice but surely there needs to be some rules about what you can and cannot do on the course. As it was, it looked as if racers were allowed to do anything as long as they crossed the finish line first with their bags of frites and dolly. So if I were behind in the race and I didn't want to lose, I might do something totally unethical like crash my dolly into the leg of the other racer, thus causing them great pain and slowing them down in the process. Whilst that may be a very effective strategy to win, it would be totally unethical and dirty of course - surely there needs to be rules to say something like, "here are the rules of this task: if you pull a dirty stunt like that, not only will you forfeit the race but you will be eliminated for cheating." I'm sure Phil and the production team may have stepped in if someone did something like that (remember team Slam Dunk did get a penalty in the previous leg in Iceland for breaking the rules), but what if it genuinely looked like an accident? What then? Or what if a racer deliberately blocked another racer or pushed the bags of frites off their dolly - again, whether it is done deliberately or not, surely that should not be allowed? Any kind of sports would have their rules about what is permissible and what isn't, so as viewers and fans, we need to know that the rules of fair play are going to be enforced because we would want the racers to have a fair fight.
Well the statistics rarely lie in TAR and it is the Firefighters who are at the bottom of the pack. They were only saved by the physical nature of the Head to Head where a firefighter was always going to have the physical advantage over team Goat Yoga. They totally floundered in Antwerp: they struggled with navigation and were slow to get to the Sky Climb - they were the last two teams to get to the Sky Climb. Then they were the only team to switch detours, sinking them into last place: that was a poor choice. The fact is with any detour, it is a steep learning curve to figure out a task which requires great attention to detail. You may need to do it a few times before you succeed, but the more time you spend on it, the more you are learning about the process and the closer you are getting to succeeding. If you are going to switch, you need to switch very early and cut your losses - after you've invested a lot of time in the detour, you're probably better off sticking to it rather than spending all that time traveling to the other location and then once you get there, you have to climb yet another steep learning curve. It demonstrates that they don't really understand strategy in TAR, even if they do have the strength to perform very well in all the physically demanding tasks. The other team that I would worry about is team Ocean Rescue: they finished 6th in Antwerp, but who can forget their 'pineapple' moment over the taxi? I thought it was Brittany who had the volatile temper but it turns out that Lucas can be just as difficult. Why didn't Lucas want to take the taxi? Good grief. He was sulking for no good reason, oh I actually felt sorry for Brittany at that moment. Pineapple!
The physical fitness factor
Unfortunately, another team that struggled in Antwerp was clearly team Yale - clearly they were at a massive disadvantage to the other teams that were physically more strong. They are not exactly weak either, certainly Evan had no problems with the very difficult ladder climb at the Sky Climb detour, but it is just that they are up against such incredibly tough competition. Likewise, Joey of team Chomp was struggling with the run to the Sky Climb and was pushed by Tim all the way there - Joey is a competitive eater and we have seen his weakness in this leg: fitness. To be fair, it is a pretty long way to run with your bags, but when you're up against such tough competition, you just have to suck it up and push yourself. Thankfully, both teams survived this leg in Antwerp - notably, Tim did the Head to Head frites race and not Joey, Tim is clearly the more fit of the two of them. However, if there is a future task that requires a lot of physical endurance and fitness, then I can see both teams Yale and Chomp struggling for last place. Also, let's not forget Jessica of team BB - is she as strong as the other racers? At least there are no racers in this season who are clearly obese as we have seen in previous season (not naming names but the hardcore fans will know whom I'm talking about). I hope any sports-type task in the future episodes would involve both skill and strength rather than brute strength.
Statistically, it looks like a two horse race between team BB (will they succeed at winning TAR when Rob and Amber failed?) and team Extreme, given their very strong performances so far. I was very fond of team Well Strung, but two 4th places so far has been disappointing but that was mostly due to them picking the wrong detour. If they had picked the other detour, they may have done even better in this leg - after all, they were the first team that did complete the harder Diamond Glint detour. It would be wrong to ignore the superb performance by team Slam Dunk in this leg - so who knows, from the past seasons, we have seen teams bounce back from the edge after having flirted with elimination and go on to win the season. In TAR, you don't have to be perfect, you just have to learn from your mistakes and become better racers as the race progresses. I'd like to see other teams do well because it would become a rather boring season if it became clear that it was going to be a two-horse race from the start - but if you are going to make me place a bet on who is going to win this season at this very early state, I would say team Extreme, followed by team BB. But I would like to see the other teams like Yale, Well Strung, IndyCar and Slam Dunk push them really hard every step of the way.
What about those in the middle of the pack?
I don't think you can write off teams that are in the middle of the pack so far - looking at the statistics, the three teams in the middle of the pack are team Indycar, team Yale and team Slam Dunk. The problem with being a very strong team is that you will put a target on your back - you can be as nice as you want with everyone else but they will soon see you as a threat they would rather not have to race against. There is a good reason to sail under the radar in the first few episodes. We can expect a range of the usual U-turns and double U-turns coming up in this season and you really don't want to be a team who gets U-turned - thus staying in the middle of the pack is a pretty safe way to avoid being U-turned if you don't get perceived to be a threat and not worth wasting a U-turn on. We have seen in S29 though, how Vanck and Ashton were U-turned because they didn't socialize enough with the other teams, so but really, I am waiting to see if there is one team that is going to start a fight or provoke another team. Oh we saw plenty of that in the last season with a lot of nasty 'trash talking' - it got ugly, no you don't go on reality TV and behave that badly, it just makes you look like a really uncultured, uncivilized pleb. All the teams seem to get along for now even after the Head to Head, so let's see if tempers will flare in Morocco in the next leg. Or perhaps team Ocean Rescue will fight with team BB? Let's see.
Here's the thing about TAR. The race was ran and concluded way back in October 2017 - the racers and CBS production team already know who the winning team are. It is not the kind of reality TV programme like America's Got Talent or The Voice where the audience actually have some influence over the outcome of the programme by voting for their favourite contestants. With TAR, we have absolutely no influence at all since the race has already concluded some time ago - so why are some people going on social media and attacking certain teams for things they have done on the race? I don't get it - when I read comments on Facebook like, "I hate this team/racer because (blah blah blah)" - I just think, who gives a shit what you think? Who the hell are you? What makes you think your opinion matters to anyone? You can rant all you want on social media, just because you have an opinion doesn't mean anyone is going to listen to a word you say even if you flood social media with your rants. What is it with these people? If it is a programme where you can influence the outcome, then fair enough, the interaction on social media can sway the popular vote to a certain degree, but we have no say over the results of TAR. So by all means, talk about the decisions the teams made on the race, talk about the format of the new season but what makes you think this is a popularity contest? And what makes you think anyone gives a shit whether you like this team or racer on this season? Is there a generation of idiots out there who actually believe anyone gives a shit what they think when they have absolutely no influence whatsoever on social media? By all means, speak up and voice your opinion on social media - then await the deafening silence that follows. Okay, okay, that's my rant over.
That's it from me for now, what do you guys think of S30 of TAR? Let me know what you think, many thanks for reading.
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