‘Amazing Race 14′: pain and suffering in Beijing

The 10th lap of “The Amazing Race” Sunday night saw the teams leave Guilin, China, and fly 1,000 miles to Beijing.

Kisha and Jen Hoffman, who came in first place last week, proclaimed they were “over” the squabble they had with the mother and son team of Margie and Luke Adams that began when Luke pushed Jen out of the way at a clue box leading Jen to hurl some expletive name-calling  his way.

In sign language, the deaf Luke said “I’m done. I’m not going to talk to them.”

But clearly problems still ensued last night. When Margie and Luke attempted to purchase tickets at the airport to go to Beijing and learned that they couldn’t use their international credit card at the counter, Kisha and Jen who were standing behind them quickly left and went to the correct window, getting their tickets first.  Then when they landed at the Beijing airport and raced to find taxis, Luke bumped Jen running to get a cabbie. And then the brother-and-sister team of Tammy and Victor Jih told the travel agent at the airport in Chinese to seat them as close to the front in the plane and put the three remaining teams in the back.

Former cheerleaders Jaime Edmonson and Cara Rosenthal were the first to reach the clue box in Beijing at a foot massage parlor where one member had to perform a very painful Road Block:  participate in a traditional Chinese foot massage. First, they had to drink medicinal tea and then get a 10-minute foot massage known for its therapeutic powers. But it was more like Chinese torture as Cara, Tammy, Luke and Kisha screamed and yelled during the ordeal. The teams were told if they cried out “uncle” any time during the massage, they would have to start over again. After they completed the massage, they had to drink another cup of tea before receiving their clue.

Their next stop was Guangcai Natatorium. But even before they got to the natatorium, there were cab squabbles between Tammy and Victor and Jaime and Cara  with the former team telling a cab driver where to go and the latter taking the cab away from them. Still, Tammy and Victor reached the location first where they learned of their Detour: Sync or Swim.

Tammy and Victor opted for Sync,  in which each team had to attempt a synchronized dive by jumping off a 3-meter springboard in unison. They would receive their next clue if they received a mark of five from the judges.

In Swim, the teams must swim eight lengths of a pool in a 400m relay.  Each contestant had to complete 200m of the relay.

Kisha and Jen fell apart at the Detour because Jen is deathly afraid of water. They decided to try Sync because there was less swimming involved, but as soon as Jen got up on the board she was too afraid to jump. So they opted for swim. Jen was outfitted with a flotation device, but after Kisha began struggling in the water herself, they went back to diving.

Meanwhile, Jaime and Cara finished the swimming task first with Margie and Luke quickly following suit.

Tammy and Victor kept jumping but they could never earn a five, so they finally opted to swim. Meanwhile, Kisha and Jen had even worse luck on the diving task, so much so that Jen broke down crying and told her sister she just wanted to quit and go home. Kisha finally convinced her baby sister that they needed to finish strong. They went back to the swimming task. Fighting through her tears, Jen was able to do her 200m.

Meanwhile, Jaime and Cara reached the Pit Stop at the nearby Drum Tower only to be told by host Phil Keoghan the race wasn’t over for the day and handed them their next clue.
–- Susan King, Los Angeles Times staff writer

[Top photo: Cara during the foot massage; bottom photo: Kisha and Jen; cbs.com]

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 28, 2009 at 12:31 pm by Jen Leo and is filed under Amazing Race, News, Tips & Advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.