Exclusive: April Gould and Sarah Williams talk 'The Amazing Race' (Part 1)

April Gould and Sarah Williams were eliminated from The Amazing Race during the second episode of the CBS reality competition's 30th season on Wednesday night.


The "Friends and Goat Yoga Instructors" became the second team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they lost The Amazing Race's first-ever "Head-to-Head Competition" and therefore checked into the Pit Stop at Grote Markt Square in Antwerp, Belgium in last place.

April faced off against Henry Zhang as well as Daniel Guiffreda in the "Head-to-Head Competition" and lost both times, so the other teams were able to step on the Pit Stop mat before them.

Had it not been for this new twist, April and Sarah would have finished in ninth place and "Twin Brothers and Firefighters" Daniel and Eric Guiffreda would've been eliminated instead.

During an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Thursday, April and Sarah talked about their The Amazing Race experience. Below is the first half of what they had to say.


Reality TV World: You two were shown getting lost on your way to the Roadblock task, but only briefly, and then you seemed to arrive at the Diamond Detour task later than most of the other teams. So did something happen there? Did you get lost again?

Sarah Williams: I think we did really good actually. We just walked all the way to the crane thing. We spent some time getting a taxi, but that wasn't working out, and then we just ended up walking there.

And I don't think we got really lost very much on [the Detour]. We were with the firefighters [Eric Guiffreda and Daniel Guiffreda] and then we were following the skiers [Kristi Leskinen and Jen Hudak], so we were all lost if we were lost. We weren't aware that we were lost. (Laughs)

April Gould: We went inside a museum and looked inside there a little bit, but we were all kind of together. We were like, "We've got to be in the right area!"

Reality TV World: When you were at the Diamonds Detour task, you considered switching tasks, but when the twins arrived, you realized you were doing okay. How close were you to actually switching? Had Eric and Daniel not showed up, do you think you would've stuck with it or left?


April Gould: We had been there quite a while. Everyone had left. We were for sure thinking that we were the very last team, and that's exactly what happened.

We were like, "This is our last time we're going to do it!" And we actually did it and felt we were ready to leave, and then the twins walked in, and it just gave us a renewed amount of energy.

And we were like, "We are going to do this!" And then that's when we really paid attention to every single step and we got it. You could hear us yelling in the background because we were excited we got it. (Laughs)

Sarah Williams: It was probably 10 minutes after the twins got there. We got it pretty quick after they got there. I don't know why we couldn't do it before! We were looking at the diamond a certain way because you have to get the exact clarity, so it was just tricky.

April Gould: Yeah! I mean, we're not diamond experts, and so it was just really tricky to know what exactly an imperfection is and what they consider an imperfection, and what they would consider a yellow or clear diamond. It was just tricky!


Reality TV World: So how long did it take you in total to finish the diamond-appraisal task?

April Gould: It was a while!

Sarah Williams: Yeah, probably like two-and-a-half or three hours.

April Gould: Yeah, it was a long time.

Reality TV World: Do you wish you had picked the printing task instead? After seeing what that task entailed, do you think that would've been a better fit for you, in hindsight?


Sarah Williams: Watching it, the skiers got it really fast! I mean, I don't know, maybe we would have figured it out. It's hard to tell.

April Gould: The skiers were very smart because they just looked at the paper backwards, so they were very strategic in that. But I think that we still would've had a hard time with that. It looked like a hard challenge too.

Reality TV World: April, how long after your first dolly race did the twins arrive? How much time did you have to rest before needing to run again?

April Gould: It took about three hours for the twins to arrive. (Laughs) We had quite a while to rest. We walked around, bought some postcards, ate some French fries. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: Sarah briefly explained why you decided to have April do both of the French-fry races, but could you elaborate on that a little bit? Given you're both yoga instructors, I'd assume you're both very fit and capable.


Sarah Williams: Well when we initially got there, April felt like she could do it really well. So we were like, "Okay, we'll try it." And I think she did great. She didn't fall at all, and she stayed really close to [Henry Zhang] the entire time.

And during the time that we were standing around waiting, people in the crowd -- who were on the outskirts -- were like, "You guys did it so awesome! Everyone else was falling on their face and their carts kept tipping over."

And so I was thinking about it, and I was like, "Okay, she's already done it once and nothing bad happened. She was able to keep everything straight and didn't tip it over or anything like that."

And so, we figured either of us were going to lose, (laughs) but she had a little bit of a better shot because she had already done it. In our heads, we figured we already lost to the firemen.

April Gould: Those bags were like 20 pounds, and there were eight of them, so I was pushing like 150 pounds worth of French fries, which is more than 150 percent of my body weight. So I feel like Sarah would've done a lot better at it than me, just because a lot of it had to do with pushing and not necessarily running.

And she's also a Crossfit trainer. But I don't know. It just worked out how it did, and like Sarah said, we probably would have lost either way. They were Marine firefighters, so, you know.


Reality TV World: This was the first time The Amazing Race introduced the "Head-to-Head Competition." Were you two fans of the show prior to appearing on this season? If so, what were your initial thoughts when you heard about this twist?

April Gould: I was a big fan of the show. I had watched and rewatched every season, and when we heard about the "Head to Head," we weren't too worried -- until we realized that that was the end [of the leg].

If there was a "Head to Head" and then another challenge after, it wouldn't have been so bad. But since that was the end and we knew that we'd be racing two men at the end, we saw our fate. But we had a few hours to accept our fate! So that was kind of good.

Sarah Williams: We both kind of figured it would take a miracle to win at that point. And we were feeling really sick doing the Diamond challenge too, because we thought we were last there, so that feeling kind of came back to us again when we were like, "Crap, now we've got to race the firemen." Social media hates [the twist]!

April Gould: It was tough. I wish it was maybe more in the beginning of the leg and that it just would've put us behind, but it was kind of a bummer that it was at the end. But it's a race and you can't choose your challenges! So, it is what it is.

Be sure to check back with Reality TV World soon to read more from our exclusive The Amazing Race interview with April and Sarah.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski