What does it take to win the Amazing Race?

[Questor]

My habit is to watch each episode of the Amazing Race twice. I recently
re-watched the finale of last season.

We hear a lot about partnership on TAR, about working together, and knowing
each other's strengths and weaknesses. Yet the top three teams last season
were "blind date" teams, who literally met at the start of the race. And two of
those teams were frequently shown bickering and having other communication
breakdowns. At the other end, the first two Philiminations were established
couples.

The top three teams were all younger, reasonably fit, and reasonably
intelligent. Another team fit that bill -- the Olympian couple, who made it
far into the race.

Do TAR finishers skew noticably towards younger, more fit teams? I don't
recall too many older winning teams. (Then again, I don't remember many
of the winners to begin with.) How much luck is involved? There certainly
is a large element of chance (taxi problems, working with animals, etc.) in
running the race. Given the results of last season, the value of knowing
each other as a couple may be quite overstated in terms of being a
requirement for winning.

In these days of "big data," it might be interesting to see a graph of team age,
some measure of team fitness, and some measure of team intelligence
plotted against finish position for every team across all the seasons.

[Frosty]

Now I am 2 weeks behind but hope to catch up soon. Elections!

[Michael Black]

Post by Frosty
Now I am 2 weeks behind but hope to catch up soon. Elections!

Are you running?

Michael

[Frosty]

Post by Michael Black

Post by Frosty
Now I am 2 weeks behind but hope to catch up soon. Elections!

Are you running?
Michael

Running advanced and regular polling areas.

Storytellers embellishment version...yes, for prime minister.

[Loren Pechtel]

Post by Questor
My habit is to watch each episode of the Amazing Race twice. I recently
re-watched the finale of last season.
We hear a lot about partnership on TAR, about working together, and knowing
each other's strengths and weaknesses. Yet the top three teams last season
were "blind date" teams, who literally met at the start of the race. And two of
those teams were frequently shown bickering and having other communication
breakdowns. At the other end, the first two Philiminations were established
couples.
The top three teams were all younger, reasonably fit, and reasonably
intelligent. Another team fit that bill -- the Olympian couple, who made it
far into the race.
Do TAR finishers skew noticably towards younger, more fit teams? I don't
recall too many older winning teams. (Then again, I don't remember many
of the winners to begin with.) How much luck is involved? There certainly
is a large element of chance (taxi problems, working with animals, etc.) in
running the race. Given the results of last season, the value of knowing
each other as a couple may be quite overstated in terms of being a
requirement for winning.
In these days of "big data," it might be interesting to see a graph of team age,
some measure of team fitness, and some measure of team intelligence
plotted against finish position for every team across all the seasons.

It's pretty clear that it's hard to win if you're not both reasonably
young and fit--I don't see it directly mattering in physical abilitiy
in most cases, but rather such people tend to stand up to the stresses
of the race much better. We've seen too many teams that looked good
but then fell apart near the end--mental fatigue.

[Karen M]

Post by Loren Pechtel

Post by Questor
My habit is to watch each episode of the Amazing Race twice. I recently
re-watched the finale of last season.
We hear a lot about partnership on TAR, about working together, and knowing
each other's strengths and weaknesses. Yet the top three teams last season
were "blind date" teams, who literally met at the start of the race. And two of
those teams were frequently shown bickering and having other communication
breakdowns. At the other end, the first two Philiminations were established
couples.
The top three teams were all younger, reasonably fit, and reasonably
intelligent. Another team fit that bill -- the Olympian couple, who made it
far into the race.
Do TAR finishers skew noticably towards younger, more fit teams? I don't
recall too many older winning teams. (Then again, I don't remember many
of the winners to begin with.) How much luck is involved? There certainly
is a large element of chance (taxi problems, working with animals, etc.) in
running the race. Given the results of last season, the value of knowing
each other as a couple may be quite overstated in terms of being a
requirement for winning.
In these days of "big data," it might be interesting to see a graph of team age,
some measure of team fitness, and some measure of team intelligence
plotted against finish position for every team across all the seasons.

It's pretty clear that it's hard to win if you're not both reasonably
young and fit--I don't see it directly mattering in physical abilitiy
in most cases, but rather such people tend to stand up to the stresses
of the race much better. We've seen too many teams that looked good
but then fell apart near the end--mental fatigue.

Mental fatigue and cockiness.

As far as I can recall, the team least likely to win that actually won was the Beekman Boys. Over 40, not noticeably fit, they recovered from their (many) mistakes and managed to keep it together mentally and walked away with a million dollars much to the surprise (and dismay) of just about everybody, proving once again that the only leg a team HAS to win is the last one.


Karen

[Brian Smith]

Post by Karen M

Post by Loren Pechtel

Post by Questor
My habit is to watch each episode of the Amazing Race twice. I recently
re-watched the finale of last season.
We hear a lot about partnership on TAR, about working together, and knowing
each other's strengths and weaknesses. Yet the top three teams last season
were "blind date" teams, who literally met at the start of the race.
And two of
those teams were frequently shown bickering and having other
communication
breakdowns. At the other end, the first two Philiminations were established
couples.
The top three teams were all younger, reasonably fit, and reasonably
intelligent. Another team fit that bill -- the Olympian couple, who made it
far into the race.
Do TAR finishers skew noticably towards younger, more fit teams? I don't
recall too many older winning teams. (Then again, I don't remember many
of the winners to begin with.) How much luck is involved? There certainly
is a large element of chance (taxi problems, working with animals, etc.) in
running the race. Given the results of last season, the value of knowing
each other as a couple may be quite overstated in terms of being a
requirement for winning.
In these days of "big data," it might be interesting to see a graph of team age,
some measure of team fitness, and some measure of team intelligence
plotted against finish position for every team across all the seasons.

It's pretty clear that it's hard to win if you're not both reasonably
young and fit--I don't see it directly mattering in physical abilitiy
in most cases, but rather such people tend to stand up to the stresses
of the race much better. We've seen too many teams that looked good
but then fell apart near the end--mental fatigue.

Mental fatigue and cockiness.
As far as I can recall, the team least likely to win that actually won was
the Beekman Boys. Over 40, not noticeably fit, they recovered from their
(many) mistakes and managed to keep it together mentally and walked away
with a million dollars much to the surprise (and dismay) of just about
everybody, proving once again that the only leg a team HAS to win is the
last one.

I agree. I doubt anyone picked them to win preseason. IIRC, I didn't think
they'd win going into the final episode. Now they're the team that everyone
can look to when they think they don't have a chance of winning.

[Ken McElhaney]

Post by Questor
My habit is to watch each episode of the Amazing Race twice. I recently
re-watched the finale of last season.
We hear a lot about partnership on TAR, about working together, and knowing
each other's strengths and weaknesses. Yet the top three teams last season
were "blind date" teams, who literally met at the start of the race. And two of
those teams were frequently shown bickering and having other communication
breakdowns. At the other end, the first two Philiminations were established
couples.
The top three teams were all younger, reasonably fit, and reasonably
intelligent. Another team fit that bill -- the Olympian couple, who made it
far into the race.
Do TAR finishers skew noticably towards younger, more fit teams? I don't
recall too many older winning teams. (Then again, I don't remember many
of the winners to begin with.) How much luck is involved? There certainly
is a large element of chance (taxi problems, working with animals, etc.) in
running the race. Given the results of last season, the value of knowing
each other as a couple may be quite overstated in terms of being a
requirement for winning.
In these days of "big data," it might be interesting to see a graph of team age,
some measure of team fitness, and some measure of team intelligence
plotted against finish position for every team across all the seasons.

It's a subject that was talked about endless in the "old days", so I guess it's worth repeating some of the high points.

Teams that wind up in the top 3 are generally the most focused on the step-by-step details of the race and do not make the big mistakes that put them in last place. These are the teams that place an emphasis on "THINKING" instead of just running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

This is because the rules of the race until the final episode are dirt simple, "Do NOT finish in last place". The very best teams are the ones that read the clue carefully, follow it step by step and set time limits on Detours or directions if something doesn't feel right. So, when a mistake does happen it does not cost them a lot of time.

Of course, if every team is running around like a chicken with its head cut off, then it's totally random as to who wins up in the top 3. However, for the first 25 seasons at least most of the teams that did make it to the top 3 were teams that made relatively few mistakes or corrected their mistakes fairly quickly.

Now, the team that actually WINS the race is operating under a different set of rules that all the previous episodes in that you MUST finish in 1st place where before you simply had to avoid a last place finish. That is why so many winners are usually NOT the best team when looking at the race from the first episode. They usually catch a few breaks and have a fairly mistake-free run which plops them in first.

Being young and in good shape helps mostly because such teams can recover from mistakes faster. However, in looking at the best teams that ever ran TAR, they were not always the fittest or the youngest, but they did have their heads in the race.

Ken