Team Singapore kicks off The Amazing Race Asia 5 at half strength

SINGAPORE — The Amazing Race Asia has just returned for a fifth season after a six-year hiatus, and its game-changing first episode just aired on AXN.

The bad news: In the premiere episode, Singaporean strength was cut to half when one of the country’s two teams was eliminated.

The good news: They were not the first team to be ousted. That misfortune befell to the Vietnam team when, in a surprise twist, there was an elimination in the very first leg of the race.

The Singaporean brother-sister team of 29-year-old Rei Umehara and 26-year-old Keiji Umehara were last on the mat at the end of that episode. But the fatal error that cost them the race was not aired on television.

During the first challenge, when teams had to pick a cardboard compass with a specific reading out of hundreds, Keiji revealed that they “made a mistake where we didn’t read the clue properly”.

They picked out the correct compass on their second try, but after they had moved on to the next location “I realised I still had the wrong compass in my hand,” Keiji recounted.

“The clue said that you had to put it back before you took the next compass,” Rei explained. “We thought we had time to go back and return it (but) the traffic killed us.”

If they could have a do-over, she said, “we would still have made the same decision to put the compass back, because that was the right thing to do. But we would have read the clue”. “Before we joined the race, my sister and I decided that we were going to be honest and play the game fairly,” Keiji added.

Still, during their short time in the race, they gained an experience that “money can’t buy”, said Rei, who is married and joined the race hoping to rekindle sibling closeness.

“I always like to experience new things in life, especially if it’s all paid for,” quipped Keiji, who runs a YouTube channel called UMeAndHara. And “we grew much, much closer”, said Rei, to the point where now, when she invites him to meet up, “he’s like, ‘It’s okay. I don’t need to see you any more’!”

Their fellow Singaporeans said they were genuinely upset to see the siblings eliminated. Still in the race is the Singaporean team known as “JK & Mike”, radio DJs Michael Tan, 33, and Jerald Ko, 28, who host The Power Breakfast Show on Power 98FM.

“We made it to the pit stop and I was looking out for them,” said Tan. When they did not appear, “I was getting increasingly upset”, he added. “I was so sad because I wanted the Singapore flag flying in the race for as long as possible. They would have done so well.”

They are not allowed to reveal their own results, but on hindsight, said Ko, he wished he had trained more before the race. “I would have run more.”

“I would have packed lighter,” quipped Tan. “I brought a hair straightener. I couldn’t live without my hair dryer, so I brought that. I brought a lot of outfits and threw them all away. I brought three pairs of shoes and in the end, I only wore one.”

“Up until we were there (in the race), we hadn’t run or even carried our backpacks once,” said Ko. “There were some teams who trained like crazy. The Malaysian boys (Team Brandon and Alphaeus) went running with backpacks filled with weights. Before we raced, during gym time, we saw them running with backpacks on treadmills.”

In contrast, their main strategy was simply, “Don’t get eliminated in Episode One”, Ko deadpanned. “The other strategy was that we had a safe word,” Tan said. “If you’re a fan of the show, you know that it tests your friendship and your relationship in every way. So we were like, ‘If one of us utters the safe word, we’ll just chill and try and find some alone time.’ That was the only strategy we had, really.”

The safe word was “pineapple”, which was uttered “a thousand times”, said Ko. “It didn’t work,” he added.

Well, when US$100,000 (S$137,600) is at stake, it is not easy to keep your cool whether you have a pineapple, a pen or a backpack full of shoes. As for how far Team JK & Mike got in the race — you will have to watch the show to find out. MAY SEAH

Catch The Amazing Race Asia Season 5 on Thursdays at 9pm on AXN (StarHub TV Ch 511 and Singtel TV Ch 304).