Exclusive: Mona Egender and Beth Bandimere dish on 'The Amazing Race' (Part 2)

Mona Egender and Beth Bandimere finished third on The Amazing Race's 22nd season during Sunday night's two-hour broadcast of the CBS reality competition's finale.


The "Roller Derby Moms" team fell short of claiming the $1 million grand prize to "Hockey Brothers" Bates Battaglia and Anthony Battaglia, who were the first team to cross the Race's finish line in Washington D.C. and therefore crowned champions, and "Newlyweds" Max Bichler and Katie Bichler, who finished in second place.

"Friends and Country Singers" Caroline Cutbirth and Jennifer Kuhle were eliminated in fourth place just before the final leg. 

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Mona and Beth talked about their The Amazing Race experience. Below is the concluding portion of their interview. Click here to read the first half.

Check our The Amazing Race homepage for exclusive interviews with the rest of the finale's teams.


Reality TV World: The majority alliance always targeted you two and Joey and Meghan for the U-Turns and such. And when I talked to Joey and Meghan, they said it felt personal to them. What do you girls think about that? It sounds like you think it was just for strategic, competitive reasons?

Beth Bandimere: I think Mona and I are a little bit more used to competing between roller derby, and we were sort of able to maybe not take it as personally. I told Max after the U-Turn that we had to do and the Speed Bump up in Scotland, I was like, "Dude, I get it. It's a game. You had it available to you. Why wouldn't you use it?"

What Mona and I did marvel at -- probably I would say towards the middle of the Race -- is we couldn't believe they weren't targeting Bates and Anthony more. I don't understand, why wouldn't you want to eliminate your biggest threat? Which was definitely them.

Reality TV World: When you girls had to do the baseball task inside National Stadium, the show said it took you 17 attempts to get it right. Could you talk about that a little bit? How did you remain in good spirits at that point? You both still seemed pretty happy and perky leaving that task. (Laughs)

Mona Egender: It was so ridiculous! It was such a ridiculous task. I mean, it was fun. We're at National Stadium and Beth is in this ridiculous ball costume. With all the mascots down on the field, how could you not have fun with that?


I mean, we were just trying to finish the Race, do the best that we could -- that's all you can worry about. What everyone else is doing and where you are, it just makes you crazy. So you just have to have fun and do the best that you can.

Beth Bandimere: Yeah, we knew again at that point that we were in the back, or we were in third place. And I remember thinking like, "Wow, we went all the way around the world. We finished the show. We're in the Final 3, and now we're standing on National field in Washington, D.C.. I mean, how many people get to do that?" It was pretty cool.

Reality TV World: So how would you girls decide who would do what Roadblock task? Did you just kind of alternate or did you try to determine who would have certain strengths going into a particular task?

Mona Egender: We definitely tried to alternate. You don't necessarily know what the Roadblock is going to do when you get a clue, so you may have to guess, like, "Hey, I have great balance, so I'm going to take this one." And it could be something totally offbeat. So the main thing was, we just tried to alternate.

Reality TV World: We didn't see much of you girls completing the final globes task. Could you elaborate on how you did? What was the most challenging part, how prepared were you, and how long do you think it took you to finish?


Beth Bandimere: Honestly, the most challenging part was just finding the country in the pit. We had the order right. We knew exactly what we were looking for. We didn't ever pick a country that wasn't the right one. It was just finding them. It was so hard! I think there were like a million globes with Australia highlighted too.

Mona Egender: We couldn't find Switzerland!

Beth Bandimere: Yeah, we just couldn't find Switzerland. We couldn't find it. I think, Mona, I don't know. I think it took us maybe 30 minutes, 45 minutes probably. Something like that.

Reality TV World: I asked Joey and Meghan if they thought your alliance with them was a real friendship or just existed for strategic purposes, and they kind of laughed saying that watching the episodes back, they think they cared more about you girls than you cared for them. What's your response to that, and how did you view the relationship you had with them?

Beth Bandimere: It's funny that you say that. Meghan actually texted me that after the show aired. I think Joey and Meghan looked at us like mom figures, which was fine, and we absolutely loved them. And I would consider them friends.


But Mona and I are incredibly competitive, and I guess that they just really didn't see that side of us until it unfortunately came down to us or them being eliminated. So we're able to put it in a box and be like, "No, it's nothing personal. It's a game." I think for them, they're not used to that level of competition.

Reality TV World: So is everything okay between you girls and Joey and Meghan now?

Mona Egender: Yeah! We were just talking to them a couple of days ago. I love Joey and Meghan. They're fun kids. They've got great personalities. We enjoyed racing with them. Yeah, everything's fine.

Reality TV World: I talked to Bates and Anthony earlier, and they told me they actually thought you two were their biggest competition throughout the entire Race, not even just at the end of it. What's your reaction to that? Does that surprise you and do you think other teams had a similar opinion?

Beth Bandimere: I think maybe Bates and Anthony recognized our physical abilities earlier than maybe some of the other teams. Just with us playing derby and them playing hockey, maybe they knew we could kind of pull it out and that we were pretty tough. That's a huge compliment to have two professional male hockey players say that two moms were their biggest competition. I mean, that's great! We'll take it.


Reality TV World: Bates lived in Washington D.C. for awhile and played for the Capitals for about a year. Did you girls think at the time that they really did have a home court advantage or were you not even aware of that detail?

Mona Egender: We were not aware that he played here or that he lived here. We knew that they were pretty well-traveled, and a lot of the places we went to, they had been to for hockey purposes. So, you know, we kind of thought, "Maybe they've been here," but we weren't aware of that.

Reality TV World: Looking back on your entire Race together, what do you think was the most difficult moment that you endured and which was the best moment?

Beth Bandimere: Oh my gosh, that is such a hard question to answer. I think probably one of the best moments was when we were in Ireland we thought we were out, and I was proud of the way that we were supporting each other and saying, "It's okay, you know what? I'm glad I got to do this with you." 

It was amazing. And then to hear we were in the Final 3, that was just such a genuinely shocking, wonderful moment -- and then obviously all the cool things that we saw.

The worst moment? The most difficult moment, I would say, getting lost in Berlin. I'd never felt so hopeless. We literally couldn't read the street signs, we were completely dehydrated, we were starving, we were exhausted. I just felt like, at one point, "This is never going to end."


Reality TV World: How long did you get lost for in Berlin?

Beth Bandimere: It felt like two days. We're still there actually. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: How were you cast on The Amazing Race and was it your first time applying for the show?

Mona Egender: This was our first time applying. You know, someone had approached the league saying, "Hey, we think a roller derby team would be interesting on the show." So there were quite a few roller derby girls that applied, and Beth and I almost didn't send in an application.

We kind of decided to do it at the very last minute. We thought, "Well, you know, we kind of have a good angle. We've got half a dozen kids between us and we're not the stereotypical roller derby girl. So, hey, let's just do it. So we through our video together last minute and we were shocked when they called!

Reality TV World: Would you ever be interested in doing an all-stars edition if given the opportunity?


Beth Bandimere: If they said that you'd need to get on a plane tonight for the all-stars, we would do it! It was amazing, absolutely.

Above is the concluding portion of Mona and Beth's interview with Reality TV World. Click here to read the first half. Check our The Amazing Race homepage for exclusive interviews with the rest of the finale's teams.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski