When cyclists Kym Perfetto and Alli Forsythe became the seventh team eliminated from The Amazing Race, it almost didn’t feel real. The pair came across as likeable and genuine, managing to effortlessly combine their competitive nature with successful finishes each week. In fact, it was these same affable personalities that made their edit so fascinating on the show. While they were generally loved by fans of the series, they seemed to rub their fellow Racers the wrong way and this even resulted in all of the opposing teams forming a pact to use the U-Turn on them (ensuring their demise). In the end, it wasn’t the U-Turn that ended the Race for Kym and Alli. It was their own decision to go for the Fast Forward, knowing that another team might secure it ahead of them. In the end, it was surfers Adam and Bethany who unsurprisingly managed to dominate a questionable Fast Forward that required teams to surf and this resulted in the cyclists’ Race coming to a premature end. I caught up with Kym and Alli to find out what happened.
Murtz Jaffer: I want to start with the obvious question. Kym, seeing that the Fast Forward involved surfing… why go for it and risk having to tangle with Adam and Bethany at all. Did you think you guys had that much of a lead especially in a leg where a double U-Turn was almost certainly in play?
Kym Perfetto: We didn’t know that it involved surfing. We knew that it would take about an hour just to get to it and it wasn’t until we were about 15 minutes from it that we realized that it could potentially be some kind of water sport.
MJ: Did you think it was fair for the show to have a Fast Forward that was so geared toward one team?
Alli Forsythe: I mean, it’s a race. Production is going to put challenges in there that will challenge everybody. They have no way of knowing if Adam and Bethany were even going to go for the fast forward…
MJ: They also had a cycling one right before that right?
KP: Yeah, we had cycling challenges. Of course it was part of a detour. So, I mean, you can always switch. It’s kind of frustrating when it is a fast forward and you don’t have any choice at all to switch but I don’t think it was unfair. I think it’s the way it happened. It was bad luck.
MJ: Kym, I know you and Alli clashed over doing the Fast Forward and even to stay when Adam and Bethany were making their attempts. How long did it take you and Alli to make-up?
KP: I would say we made up pretty much immediately. I mean Alli and I… tension was high for the rest of the day. We knew we had made a pretty bad mistake at this point, and I think we were both feeling really hard on ourselves. And at that moment, when we snapped at each other, we just kind of snapped at each other and then we moved on. And it’s kind of how our relationship. We tell each other when we are upset and say how we feel and get it off our chest.
MJ: Alli, I was absolutely fascinated by the edit you guys received this season and it is one that I plan on analyzing for some time. You were portrayed as fun-loving and likeable for the entire season, but a couple of episodes ago, it appeared that the teams started resenting you. Was there an incident that spurred them all ganging up against you?
AF: No, I don’t think there was one thing, like one single incident that spurred them to do that. I think they thought we were up to something every time we’d take off and do our own thing. They thought, we were scheming or that we had something up our sleeve or we were just suspicious and we weren’t always around the other teams. I think that made them uncomfortable and a little intimidated by us. And so, I think when they had the opportunity to all be together, it was something that just kind of came up and was spoken about and I think everybody just kind of started talking about how they were maybe suspicious of us.
KP: And there is also the fact that the Dentists had the save. So people weren’t going to gang up against them, because it didn’t really matter at that point when there was only one U-Turn left to gang up against them. So we were the easy target.
AF: Right. And I don’t know if you guys know this, but the save could have been handed off to anybody, like Jim and Misti could have given it to another team if they wanted to keep another team in the Race or something. So that made even more people not want to gang up on them. They really wanted to try and befriend the Dentists.
MJ: Can you talk about your relationship with Jim and Misti? You went from disliking them, to working together, to them agreeing to U-Turn you when all the teams created what I like to call the “Put The Brakes On The Cyclists” alliance. What was your relationship like with them during the filming of the show and what is it like now?
KP: So I would say it was never really a bad one. I know even when we were drawing TEAM NO FUN on the car, it was done as a kind of fond poking fun of them because Jim always seemed so serious, and I know that it’s just… it’s fun because I knew we were the fun loving team. We were the ones that were like, ‘let’s go to the pub again… let’s dance!’ and no one else ever wanted to do that. And they were like ‘you guys are crazy, like, you’re going to want to sleep at some point’ and we were like ‘no we don’t think so.’ So I was just laughing and making fun of them in that sense, but truly I never had anything against them. I never disliked them… I can totally relate to Jim, he is competitive, he has got his eye on the prize and his competitive nature is like… he is like the male version of me in a lot of respects. So I don’t dislike him, I can respect it.
MJ: You guys seemed very prepared for the show. Can you talk about what you did to get ready?
AF: Do you want to us to reveal our secrets?! [Laughs] I’ll just tell you that we watched a lot of past episodes.
MJ: This is not what I mean though… I felt like Tim and Te Jay were on vacation. I felt like Adam and Bethany were on a honeymoon. I felt like you guys were the only ones who were they to play.
AF: Well, I think that’s just our nature. We’re both competitive people to begin with and then you put us in a situation with higher stakes I mean, you just kind of rise up to the challenge. It’s a race and that’s what we were there for.
KP: Plus, we can really use the money.
MJ: Right, right. So what did you guys do? I know you were already pretty athletic by being full-time cyclists. Did you also watch past episodes?
AF: Mmmhmm. Yeah, we watched a lot past episodes and we trained in various ways. I mean, I don’t know, if there is ever an All-Star opportunity for us, I don’t want to tell everybody what we did! [Laughs].
MJ: Alright, we will leave it at that then. Kym, is it possible to have fun while doing the Amazing Race and still be successful or do you need to retain a competitive edge at all times like Jim does?
KP: Yeah, well I mean why do people get into sports if they’re not having fun? I mean why do they get into them if they are not fun? Not everyone is like, ‘I’m going to go race this bike race, because it’s going to make me a lot of money…’ Well no, because professional cyclists don’t make money, and we do it because we enjoy it and we love it. And Alli and I really strive in competition. We enjoy it. We have fun when we are competing. We have fun when we are being challenged. Even when we are in the back of the pack and we’re freaking out, we’re still having fun. [Laughs].
MJ: Alli, if you could go back, is there anything you would do differently aside from going for the Fast Forward?
AF: There are things right now. I mean, I think we played a pretty great game and had a lot of fun while we are doing it. There were so many what ifs and could have-beens and all of that.
KP: I still think I would have gone for the Fast Forward, honestly. I think I would have put more urgency into nailing it quicker. When I first got there, I wasn’t stressing it and I felt like keeping a calm cool head would get us through it more successfully…
AF: As far the game itself I think I would have just tried to get to know the other teams a little sooner and tried to strategize a little earlier on in the game.
MJ: Kym, I almost felt like America had a collective, ‘oh no!’ when you guys were eliminated. I feel like the entire show was really built around you guys and that you were the focus of so many of the episodes. Then, all of sudden, the air gets let out of the balloon and you guys are gone. Do you feel like Adam and Bethany now become the team that everybody is rooting for?
KP: Yeah, I mean, I have been paying attention to social media and I think it seems like there is a lot of support for Bethany specifically because she is such a figure that people have been watching pretty closely for most of her adult life. And so, people have bonded with this woman, Bethany Hamilton, who we have all heard of before. However, I have also seen a lot of support for the Scientists. I have seen some support even for the Wrestlers and the Dentists. Of course I am a little dismayed when I see the support for the Wrestlers. I am like ‘come on guys, they just tag along to everyone else and they don’t do anything on their own!’ And when they do try something on their own, it’s not really well thought out. I can understand they are likeable and their personalities are likeable…
MJ: And Alli, are you guys cool with the wrestlers now?
AF: Yeah, I mean, I think, I don’t have anything against any of them.
KP: We don’t really keep in touch.
AF: Yeah, we don’t really keep in touch with them like we do with some of the other teams but I don’t have anything against them.
MJ: Kym, what’s next for you?
KP: What’s next?
AF: Big Brother! She’s going to go into the Big Brother house!
KP: I am going to continue to try and takeover the world! That’s my plan! Every night, Alli and I had some evil plans to take over the world. No, just continue YouTube videos and traveling by bike everywhere, all over the world and we still got a lot more countries to see and to traverse. Basically adventuring. As long as I’m doing that, I’m pretty happy.
AF: Yeah, well, I am teaching at Soul Cycle now with a full schedule there and I’m also working on my own web series now to launch in the New Year, and that’s something I’m really excited about. So that’s what I working on.
MJ: That sounds great, well guys thank you so much. I look forward to seeing you at the finale in a couple of weeks.
AF: Thank you. Good to talk to you.
