The "Sibling Lawyers" team of Tammy Jih and Victor Jih were revealed to be The Amazing Race's fourteenth-season winners during last night's finale broadcast of the CBS reality series.
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"Victor has just pushed me my whole life and in this race, and I'm just so thankful to be here with him," Tammy said.
Victor, a 35-year-old lawyer from Los Angeles, CA, and Tammy, a 26-year-old lawyer from San Francisco, CA, were the first team to reach the race's finish line in Maui, Hawaii and claim the $1 million grand prize.
"I don't think this race has changed completely 26 years of [my big brother/little sister relationship with Victor] but it has helped it progress," Tammy added afterwards. "When I look back at all the crazy things that I've done, I've learned that the nerdy little Asian girl that could barely hold up her backpack before can do quite a bit!"
The "Former NFL Cheerleaders" team of Cara Rosenthal, a 26-year-old law student from Boca Raton, FL, and Jaime Edmondson, a 29-year-old former police officer from Ft. Lauderdale, FL, finished second.
"This experience was the most wild, unexpected and enriching experience I think I'll ever have in my life," Cara said afterwards.
"It's really extra special when females can be on the same playing field with the guys. Second [place] is not too shabby when you look at the competitors that we beat out," Jaime added. "Cara and I have a lot to be proud of."
The "Mother and Son" Margie Adams, a 51-year-old clinical research associate from Denver, CO, and Luke Adams, a deaf 23-year-old college graduate from Denver, CO, finished third.
"I'm so happy for Luke that he got to be on The Amazing Race," Margie said afterwards. "Every morning he would wake up and pinch himself because he couldn't believe, he'd say "Mom, are we really doing it?' Just to see how happy it's made him is just great."
"The first deaf person on The Amazing Race -- I'm very proud of that," Luke said. "Other deaf people can do the same as me. No matter what, deaf people can do anything."
The Amazing Race 14's eleventh and final episode began with the three remaining teams leaving the "Bird's Nest," the 2008 Summer Olympics stadium in Beijing, China that had served as the Pit Stop of the race's tenth leg.
Tammy and Victor -- the first team to reach the race's tenth Pit Stop -- were the first team to depart at 9:15PM. Upon opening their clue, they learned they needed to fly more than 5,000 miles to Maui, Hawaii and make their way to public beach access location #118.
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Margie and Luke left the Pit Stop in second place at 11:24PM and were followed by Jaime and Cara at 2:04AM.
However although they had left the Pit Stop nearly five hours apart, all three teams ended up on the same flight to Hawaii due to the fact that the first available flight wasn't until 9:30AM, which gave all three teams plenty of time to book tickets on the flight.
After they arrived in Hawaii, the teams left the airport and raced to the beach location. All three teams arrived at the beach in the same order they'd left the airport: Tammy and Victor were first, followed by Jaime and Cara in second place, and Margie and Luke in third place.
Once they arrived at the beach, the teams learned that they needed to season a 145-pound pig for a traditional Hawaiian luau, carry it 200 yards to the luau location, and then properly cover the pig for the luau barbeque.
Although their teams seasoned their pigs quickly, Tammy and Cara both struggled to help their partners carry their pigs to the luau location, resulting in Margie and Luke jumping into the lead and becoming the first team to complete the task. Tammy and Victor were the second team to complete the task and Jaime and Cara followed shortly thereafter in third place.
After they completed the luau task, the teams received a new clue which instructed them to make their way to the beach at McGregor Point. Once there, they would have to take a one-mile ride on a jet ski and then search 100 floating buoys for a buoy that contained their next clue.
All three teams arrived at the jet ski location in the same order that they'd left the luau task, however Tammy and Victor fell into last place when Jaime and Cara managed to become the second team to find their buoy and return to the McGregor Point beach.
Upon returning to shore and opening their clues, the teams were instructed to travel to a Hana Highway surf shop that featured a fence constructed out of used surfboards.
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Once they arrived at the surf shop, the team's learned that it would serve as their final Roadblock location and the task would require one member of each team to search through more than 300 vintage surfboards and locate 11 boards which featured pictures that represented something the teams had encountered during one of the race's 11 legs. In addition to selecting the correct 11 pictures, the team member would have to order the surfboards in the order in which the legs occurred.
Given The Amazing Race has featured similar finale tasks before, Margie and Luke seemed to have been expecting it quickly decided that Luke -- who had been reviewing each leg in anticipation of such a task -- would be the one to complete it.
Meanwhile, Margie and Luke's lead seemed to grow even bigger when Jaime and Cara's taxi took them to the wrong shop and Victor and Tammy's cab got stuck behind a slow jeep their driver couldn't pass.
Similar to her overseas experiences, Jaime attempted to berate and yell at her team's cab driver, however unlike in her overseas instances, her driver's English-speaking dispatcher fired back.
"You need to tell your people that I am not their personal concierge and I don't have the time to be looking for this place for them," the dispatcher squawked back at the driver.
Exasperated, Jaime asked to borrow her taxi driver's mobile phone to call the local police department, which seemed surprisingly accommodating and quickly gave them directions to the shop.
Victor and Tammy finally arrived at the Roadblock when Luke already had eight of the 11 surfboards positioned. Similar to Margie and Luke, they also seemed to have anticipated the task and quickly identified Victor as the one who would complete it.
Given his huge lead, the task still looked like it was Luke's to win, however he ended up misidentifying the tenth and eleventh legs' pictures, allowing Victor to slowly catch up and close the gap.
Unaware that his tenth leg board was also incorrect, Luke kept trying various eleventh leg boards and grew increasingly frustrated as his board ordering was repeatedly rejected.
Jaime and Cara seemed to arrive at the task just as Victor was beginning to order most of the boards he had already located and quickly tapped Jaime to complete the task for their team.
Luke eventually realized that Leg 10 board was incorrect and replaced it with a board containing the correct picture, however he still continued to be unable to locate the correct Leg 11 board, resulting in Victor becoming the first person to successfully complete the task.
After completing the Roadblock task, Tammy and Victor received the Race's final clue, which instructed them to travel to King Kamehameha Golf Club and then run to the finish line.
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Since Luke had helped Jaime first, her team ended up being the first one to leave the Roadblock task, however neither one managed to get to the finish line ahead of Tammy in Victor, resulting in the brother and sister team winning the fourteenth edition of the race-around-the-world competition.
About The Author: Steven Rogers
