Henry Zhang and Evan Lynyak finished The Amazing Race's 30th season in second place on CBS.
 
The "Dating Couple" on the show and "Yale Debating Teammates" came close to winning the $1 million grand prize but fell short after they had traveled more than 29,000 miles through nine countries and crossed the finish line in San Francisco, CA, in second place after Jessica Graf and Cody Nickson.

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Jessica and Cody walked away champions, and "Retired Professional Skiers and Friends" Kristi Leskinen and Jen Hudak placed third. Finally, "Friends and IndyCar Drivers" Alex Rossi and Conor Daly finished in fourth place.

"I think we're obviously a little disappointed about second place, but I'm so proud of us for making it this far," Evan said at the end of the Race. "We'll be okay, and we know how to take away all of the wonderful memories and positives that you can get from an experience even if you don't get the result."

During a recent exclusive interview with Reality TV World, Henry and Evan talked about their The Amazing Race experience. Below is the concluding portion of what they had to say.

Reality TV World: Henry always seemed down for helping people but Evan wasn't. Evan, you'd often be shown complaining, "Henry, why did you do that?!" Was the editing accurate? Jessica and Cody seemed to think you guys kind of ostracized yourselves due to Evan's refusal to help other teams.

Henry Zhang: So I'm not sure why -- maybe they fixated on certain moments earlier, where like they asked for help but we really didn't think it was necessary to give that kind of help, but I definitely think throughout the Race -- and I don't think they showed this much -- but we tried our best to get along with the other teams and help them where we could.

But there were critical moments, I think, when you're racing for last place on a leg, in that moment, we think it makes perfect sense to not help another team. So I think that was pretty consistent throughout.

Evan Lynyak: I will also say I never felt unwilling to help people when it was mutually beneficial, which I think is a pretty reasonable attitude to hold in a competition in which fundamentally everyone is trying to win.

And I think Henry, we discussed this, it was purposeful if we were to assume that attitude. And Henry and I communicate differently, so perhaps I asserted that boundary in different language than he did throughout the Race.

But you know, I don't think I was ever unwilling to help people in situations where I thought it was mutually beneficial and, to Henry's point just now, didn't have a high likelihood of resulting in our elimination.

And they may certainly feel that that resulted in social consequences for us, but I think we were pretty happy with the results on the Race and felt as comfortable as we hoped for within a competition.

Reality TV World: Jessica has been criticized for being a little hypocritical during the Race. She and Cody U-Turned the Musicians, but then she got mad at Brittany Austin and Luke Bocanegra for U-Turning them.

And Evan, Jessica was frustrated with you when you refused to help her with the "Partner Swap" Detour, but there were times she'd be sneaky to get ahead. What are your thoughts on all that? Do you think her frustrations were justified?

Evan Lynyak: I think the thing about the Race is that it comes with a lot of stress and pressure, and everyone process that differently and it provokes emotional responses.

So, even though I was on the receiving end of some of her frustration, I can absolutely empathize with the feelings that I'm sure she was experiencing. So I think that often, a lot of the commentary is, you know, unfair or just uninformed (laughs).

I'm sure in calm moments of distance and reflection, everyone would agree that it's a competition and things of that sort. So, you know, I can understand why she would feel that way in that moment and under those conditions of the Race. 

Reality TV World: What was your greatest challenge or obstacle throughout the entire Race? And if you were to race again in an all-stars edition, what do you think you'd do differently or how might you better prepare?

Evan Lynyak: I think the biggest challenge honestly is just slowing down during moments of great speed, intensity and stress to be able to think clearly.

It's something we tried to do (laughs), but there were so many moments -- even in the finale -- when you can shave so much time off a leg by just trying to calm down and take what seems like an unreasonable amount of time doing things, but what really ends up saving you so much time by just avoiding small, silly mistakes.

Henry Zhang: If we're ever fortunate enough to get the chance at this point, we had an awesome, awesome time, so there was definitely some thinking that went before it.

And now having actually gone through that experience, there are just a lot of different things, I think, that we thought a lot about to up our game.

Certainly the preparation -- which we thought would be our big advantage, where we would really distinguish ourselves as a team -- was there. We tried to make decisions well as a team, and as Evan was saying, that's certainly something we would also try to do.

And there are plenty of other things. We'd probably re-watch another 10 seasons, which is what we did to prepare, and try to think more about some of the strategies that were happening there as well as just getting better prepared on some other fronts.

For example, if I had been a little more physically fit, maybe we wouldn't have been...

Evan Lynyak: (Laughs) I can certainly relate to that on my upper-body strength.

Reality TV World: How is your relationship doing now? Has it gotten even stronger since you competed on the Race?

Evan Lynyak: I think it was a really, really special experience that we shared that only made our relationship much stronger, just because there are incredible memories that we now get to reflect on together.

I also think that we really, really enjoyed our time together on the Race. And even though there were moments of, of course, frustration, we had so much fun! And that was really, really reassuring to experience.

Henry Zhang: I totally agree with all of that. And one thing I'll add is, like, I think this is true for every team that does well, but you only get to see little snapshots of the Race that are put together for the show, basically.

But one thing I think I learned about Evan was 99 percent of the time -- or even 100 percent of the time -- I think we worked really well together.

She was a super, super supportive partner and really was there for me in a way that I think helped me perform better. And I'd like to think that for us together working as a team, that was an advantage that we had.

To read the first half of Reality TV World's exclusive The Amazing Race interview with Henry and Evan, click here.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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