Race Across The World's former winners have revealed their secrets to winning the BBC show.
This year's race takes the stars of the show from northernmost Japan to an Indonesian island paradise, Lombok. Along the way, the teams will have to cross six seas and eight borders in order to reach the final checkpoint and the winners will bank £20,000.
The stakes are higher than ever and Race Across The World's rules had a major change this year as another form of transport was banned. Contestants were banned from using high-speed bullet trains during their travels in Japan.
All the teams have strategies that they are employing in a bid to get ahead in the early legs and win the show. But what have the past Race Across The World winners learnt from their experience? And what are their secrets to winning the race in their series?
Slow down
In the first ever Celebrity spin off of Race Across The World, Alex Beresford triumphed alongside his dad Noel after going on the journey of a lifetime. The weatherman revealed his biggest learning curve that led to winning the race.
Beresford and his dad hadn't won any of the legs prior to winning the entire show. "That was the first time that we’d opened the book and been first," he said after winning the show. "But that’s what we realised… You only have to win the last leg in order to win the competition."
"It was a marathon, it was not a sprint," he told Virgin Radio last year. "I think every team went through moments where you just wanted to sprint ahead. But you learn you can’t run the whole way. Sometimes you have to slow down to get ahead eventually."
Keep money back
Best friends Cathie and Tricia were confident that budgeting was one of the main reasons they reached the checkpoint first in the race across Canada in series three Race Across The World. The two friends divided up their money into the eight weeks of the race.
"One of our strategies was that we wanted to keep money back because we wanted to have choices on the last leg so when we knew how much money we had to start with we built into that weekly budget," Cathie told The Tab.
Cathie and Tricia weren't taking any chances with their money, having seen series one where contestants Josh and Felix were unable to win because they couldn't afford the 46 Singapore dollars (£27) lift to the viewing platform at the final checkpoint.
Tricia further explained: "We thought we need some money because we don’t know what’s going to happen on the other side. I know somebody in series one had to pay to get up the lift so we were like right we’ve got to get the cheapest option and the fastest option so that’s what influenced us really."
Adapting with sleep
Sleep also has to take a backseat when it comes to the race, according to past champions. Series two winner Emon Choudhury won with his nephew Jamiul, narrowly beating the second team by 20 seconds in one of the most astonishing moments of the series.
Contestants are given the equivalent cost of airfare to the final checkpoint upfront to cover them for the whole trip. The uncle revealed using overnight buses was one of the ways they saved money along the way but it come at the cost of their sleep.
He told The Express: "To be honest with you, the trickiest part for me was budgeting because I think it was about £26 a day. That’s for everything: food, accommodation, travel, so you had to be really savvy with that money."
He added: "We had to learn to sleep whilst driving like on the buses. We had to learn because we did a lot of overnight buses to save on our accommodation, so our sleep was out of the window."
Trust and a bit of luck
The show's first ever winners Tony and Elaine Teasdale put their winning down to luck and trust. The retired couple also had already travelled in Asia before and admittedly that had helped them too. Tony said: "I think the travel gods were on our side on the last two legs."
He added: "We were really fortunate to have some really good connections after we left China. I think because we had done a fair bit of travelling in Asia, we were able to do well there. We also saved a lot of money for the end."
They had been married for 43 years when competing in the race and that was a "huge plus" while in the race. Of their relationship, he added: "If you're married, you know each other so well, there's a lot of telepathy, which is a big plus. You're on the same wavelength... We both had the same reaction to most of the countries."
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