Aras Baskauskas Biography (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

| location = Venice, California | season = Exile Island | finish = Winner | tribe = Viveros, Casaya, Gitanos }} Aras Baskauskas (born September 26, 1981) is the winner of Survivor: Exile Island and is the youngest male winner of Survivor at the time of taping. He is of Lithuanian descent.

Aras played collegiate NCAA Division I basketball at UC Irvine from 2000 to 2004, where he was a honored as a Big West Conference scholar athlete for three seasons. Aras received his B.A. in philosophy in 2002 and his MBA in 2004.

Aras currently resides in Venice, CA. He is the CEO of TundraGear.com, a winter hat company. He also spends much of his time and energy teaching yoga in Santa Monica.

Survivor: Exile Island

Originally part of the Younger Male Viveros tribe, Aras did not become a target early in the game, leading his tribe to victory in the first immunity challenge. In Episode 2, Aras became a member of the Casaya tribe and formed an early alliance with Shane Powers, Courtney Marit and Danielle DiLorenzo. But the alliance was threatened with extinction when Shane wanted to quit the game, having smoked three packets of cigarettes a day prior to Survivor. But Aras convinced him not to quit and the alliance voted out Melinda Hyder instead.

In Episode 5, Aras led the charge to vote out Bruce Kanegai due to their clashing points of view, but Courtney, Danielle and Cirie Fields felt that Bobby Mason was much more of a threat than Bruce and they voted Bobby out. When the tribes merged in Episode 7, the ex-Casaya tribe members consisting of Aras, Shane, Bruce, Cirie, Courtney and Danielle had the power in numbers against the four ex-La Mina tribe members. Due to Terry Deitz, the largest target, winning immunity, the alliance voted out Nick Stanbury, Austin Carty and Sally Schumann in three straight tribal councils.

At the Final 7, Bruce was evacuated out of the game due to constipation, causing him immense pain. When Terry continued to win individual immunity, the alliance was forced to turn on themselves at the Final 6. Shane, together with Terry, Cirie and Aras targeted Danielle, but Courtney, together with Terry, Danielle and Cirie wanted to vote out Aras. Not happy with any of these options, Cirie brewed a plan of her own, and together with Aras and Danielle, voted out Courtney, whom Cirie believed was aligned with Shane.

At the Final 5, Terry continued his immunity winning streak and once again the alliance was forced to take out one of their own. Shane, believing he was safe, targeted Danielle. But once again Cirie had her own plans and together with Aras and Danielle, they voted out Shane, whom had aligned with Terry. At the Final 4, the long standing rivalry between Terry and Aras was once again raised when Aras won a reward, much to Terry's dismay. When sent to Exile Island, Terry and Danielle formed an alliance against Aras and Cirie with plans of ousting Aras.

But Aras managed to win immunity, making him safe. Terry, due to the widely-known fact that he possessed the hidden immunity idol, was also safe. This created a 2-2 tie between Danielle and Cirie, whom competed in a fire-building challenge to determine their fate. Shown over two episodes, Danielle won the challenge and Aras' ally Cirie was eliminated. With Terry's idol now useless, it was now fair game between the Final 3, Aras, Danielle and Terry.

At the Final 3 immunity challenge, Danielle out-balanced the two guys to win immunity, giving her the power to choose her opponent in the Final 2. Danielle eventually chose to eliminate Terry, making him the final member of the jury and propelling Aras into the Final 2.

In the end, Aras Baskauskas beat out Danielle DiLorenzo to became the Sole Survivor in a 5-2 vote, gaining the votes of Austin Carty, Sally Schumann, Courtney Marit, Cirie Fields and Terry Deitz.

Trivia

• Aras is the grandson of the late Days of Our Lives actor Macdonald Carey, and appeared on the show in 1988 as one of the children listening to Dr. Tom Horton (played by Carey) read the Christmas story .

• He currently holds dual citizenship in Lithuania and the USA.

• He was born on the same day as Survivor: Vanuatu contestant John Kenney.

• He is also friends with The Amazing Race 10 winners, Tyler and James.

• He is a yoga practitioner and teacher.

• He is a vegetarian

• He is an integral figure at The Cheshire Project, a non-profit that benefits people with disabilities.

• Is left-handed

• Aras is the fifth "Survivor" contestant to have played professional sports, having played pro basketball in Lithuania after college. The others are Ethan Zohn (soccer), Ted Rogers (football), Travis Sampson (wrestling), and Gary Hogeboom (football).

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