The Amazing Race‘s Brett Hamby and Mark Romain got lost on their way to the Council of Europe, but the mishap was caused by a mistake with the site’s confusing address.
“There were two of the same address, 11 Council to Europe, and we triple-checked to make sure we were going to the right one,” Romain, 37, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, May following his and Hamby’s elimination. “We somehow ended up getting directions to the wrong one.”
Romain added that the Council of Europe “exists in two exact places” in Strasbourg, France, and both locations are at opposite ends of the city.
“One’s on one side of the city and one’s on the other side of the city,” he explained. “Same address, same address, different zip code, same exact address.”
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Hamby, 36, noted that they “knew” there were two addresses and tried to “avoid” the mixup but were unsuccessful. When they got to the first stop, which was not shown in the episode, they searched the grounds to find their next clue.
“It was a bunch of different buildings. We’re like, ‘OK, well this has to be in this complex. Where is it?’ And we finally realized, oh, it’s the other one,” Hamby told Us. “We did it to ourselves.”
By going to the incorrect address, Romain and Hamby, 36, ended up “45 minutes behind” the other teams. The pair were fighting for last place with Alyssa and Josiah Borden. (The couple, who are both nurses, had an advantage with Express Pass, which could let them skip one challenge.)
“I think [the pressure of being close to last place] put us in a really frazzled mindset, and if Strasburg could add some street signs, that would be helpful,” Romain quipped.
While navigation wasn’t Romain and Hamby’s strongest asset, they thought they could make up time by executing the challenges quickly, like they’ve done all season long. Once they were on the right track, they caught up to multiple teams and seemed back in it — until they decided to do the “For the Birds” detour task.
Romain and Hamby opted to build a stork’s nest rather than do laundry in a river for the “Out to Dry” challenge. The pair got to the challenge first but got hung up on the construction of the nest as the example wasn’t finished when they arrived. As they worked on the nest, Romain and Hamby didn’t realize they were missing steps from the meticulous process.
“When we got there, the guy who was the example guy never finished it. Mm. He never finished the whole example. He would just do the thing, tie it, untie it, put it on tight, untie it,” Hamby claimed. “But there were steps after that that he never got to until Josiah and Alyssa got there.”
Romain added they might have “missed” some of the steps while running back and forth during their assembling process. Romain confessed that he and Hamby wanted to do the laundry challenge initially but thought it was a better strategic option to do the task that had less competition.
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“We wanted to go to [the] laundry, but strategically we thought if we’re the fourth person to [choose] laundry, then we’re wasting time,” he recalled. “So let’s go to [the] stork because no one’s gonna go [there] and [it] was kind of nice … It was fun. We like the challenge.”
While the 10th leg of The Amazing Race didn’t end in Romain and Hamby’s favor, they gave it their all.
“The race is a marathon, and you don’t wake up every day feeling like your best self, and you just have to show up how you show up,” Romain reflected. “And that day, things were not clicking like they were every other day.”
The Amazing Race airs on CBS Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET and is available to stream on Paramount+ the next day.