The Amazing Race season 36 contestants Sean Clark and Michelle Clark got stuck on a roadblock during their final episode of the show.
“We were there for maybe about four hours [or] five hours,” Sean, 46, exclusively told Us Weekly of the roadblock on Thursday, April 4, one day after he and his wife, Michelle, 39, were eliminated from the CBS series.
During the episode, it appeared as though the couple were told to go meet host Phil Keoghan at the pit stop without finishing the roadblock challenge, during which Michelle had to memorize the locations of statues in a plaza and arrange them in the correct position on a map.
While Michelle told Us she didn’t “know if I can say” whether she finished the roadblock or simply timed out, she admitted that she and Sean “were there for hours” after competitor Karishma Cordero completed the task. Karishma, 22, was the last one to finish the roadblock.
Michelle’s confusion came down to not understanding the orientation of the map relative to the plaza.
“You know how when you learn a dance, the dance teacher stands the way you’re standing, right? [With the roadblock] it’s like if the dance teacher was standing the other way,” Michelle explained. “So, that’s what had got me really perplexed. … It was flipped on my side.”
Two of Michelle’s competitors, Shane Bilek and Rod Gardner, decided to work together on the roadblock. But when she asked them to help her, Rod, 46, shut her down.
“Rod, I was very mad at you,” Sean quipped to Us. “I was upset.”
Despite falling so far behind, Michelle and Sean stayed impressively calm as the time ticked away. They even jokingly asked Phil, 56, whether they were the first pair to make it to the pit stop when they finally arrived in the dark. Michelle chalked their relaxed attitudes up to the paragliding they did earlier in the day.
“If we didn’t do the paragliding before, I wouldn’t have been so at peace,” she explained.
The paragliding served as a moment of redemption for Sean. During the previous episode, his fear of heights temporarily slowed the pair down as they trekked down the side of a treacherous cliffside. However, Sean was fearless when it came to sailing through the air with a parachute.
“I was so excited. I was so ready,” he said. “Fear holds you back. … That’s why I always say, ‘On the other side of fear is freedom.’”
The Amazing Race airs on CBS Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET.
