‘The Amazing Race’s’ Derek and Shelisa: ‘We didn’t play the game’
Derek and Shelisa Williams were in mega trouble right from the start of Wednesday’s Mega Leg in Córdoba, Argentina, on “The Amazing Race 36.” The couple chose the bolas Detour, in which each team member must throw a bola around a moving target within 10 attempts. While Shelisa nailed hers, Derek struggled before they decided to switch to bicycles. But they never recovered from that setback and were eliminated.
“We’re reading [the clue] and we’re like, ‘Uh, bike?’ Because we ride a Peloton almost every day. ‘Bike?'” Shelisa tells Gold Derby (watch above). “It was like, ‘Oh, let’s do something fun.’ Instead of sticking to the game plan of doing things that’s familiar, if we can recognize it, that’s what we’re gonna do. But no, let’s have fun! We’re on ‘The Amazing Race!'”
“Competing for a million bucks,” Derek adds. “We didn’t play the game. Maybe because we’re new to this. I said, ‘You know, Shelisa, we’re on ‘The Amazing Race,’ let’s experience it, let’s have fun. Just do something different.’ Which is, like, no. This is a ‘job.’ Let’s go do what we do and get it done.”
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While they don’t know how long they spent at the bolas before switching, they realized pretty quickly that they made the wrong choice and they saw things going further south once Yvonne and Melissa completed the challenge, leaving them as the sole team there. Derek and Shelisa never saw another team after that. And viewers never saw what second Detour they chose — and for good reason: They didn’t perform one as they were told to go directly to the Pit Stop after the seven teams had checked in. But you can bet your house that the retired cops would’ve chosen fingerprints.
“We would’ve killed the fingerprint thing with our background. Finally something in our wheelhouse,” Derek says. “I just thought about it just now. The producers said, ‘This is [your] time to shine.’ They said, ‘You know what, I know you guys ride the Peloton, so if you had picked that, you would’ve done it, and we’ll give you something that you’ve done for years — the forensics stuff.'” We’d be still in it.”
“You know what? The clues were there and we didn’t read them,” Shelisa quips.
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