Natalie Anderson and Nadiya Anderson finished The Amazing Race's 21st season in fourth place during Sunday night's two-hour finale broadcast of the CBS reality competition.

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The "Twin Sisters" had been eliminated from the Race just shy of making it to the Final 3 due to arriving at the eleventh leg's Pit Stop in Loire Valley, France, in last place.

"Goat Farmers and Life Partners" Josh Kilmer-Purcell and Brent Ridge were crowned the champions when they were the first team to cross the final finish line in New York, NY, ultimately claiming the $1 million grand prize. "Chippendales Dancers and Best Friends" Jaymes Vaughan and James Davis finished second, while "Dating Couple" Trey Wier and Alexis "Lexi" Beerman came in third place.

In an exclusive interview on Monday, Natalie and Nadiya talked to Reality TV World about their The Amazing Race experience.
 
Below is the first half of Natalie and Nadiya's interview. Check back with Reality TV World soon for the concluding portion. Also, to read the first half of our interview with Josh and Brent, click here. To begin reading Trey and Lexi's interview, click here. For more interviews with the Final 4 teams, check back with us throughout the week. 

Reality TV World: How far behind Josh and Brent do you think you finally arrived at the Pit Stop where you got eliminated?

Natalie Anderson: You know what? We have no idea. We didn't even ask them, because we were with them yesterday. For us, it didn't even really matter whether we lost by a few minutes or a second or hours. It didn't matter to us. We came in fourth. Me and Nadiya are the kind of people who don't analyze and think, "Oh my God, how much was it?" For us, we lost, and that's all we care about. (Laughs)

Reality TV World: How confident were you leaving that mushroom Roadblock task that you were going to survive and be one of the Final 3 teams? I'm sure you didn't think you'd get lost on the way to the Pit Stop.

Nadiya Anderson: Yeah, we were extremely confident. I mean, me and Natty were really navigating well through France all by ourselves with no help from anybody else. All the other teams actually had each other while they were navigating through the country.

Once we got separated, we were on our own. And we had actually navigated so well that we got through that first Roadblock in second and then we got to the mushrooms before the Beekman Boys [Josh and Brent], even though we left there second.

And we felt really confident leaving. The only problem is, we can't anticipate wrong directions. So, we actually got to the place and the lady told us really well. Unfortunately, it was the wrong place we were going to. So, you know, it was just a bad choice for listening to somebody. Would've, could've, should've -- it doesn't matter. At the end of the day, we went the wrong way.

Reality TV World: Natalie, I know you mentioned you girls didn't pay close attention to how long things took you. But do you have any idea how long it took you to finish that mushroom Roadblock task? And also, what was the most complicated thing about the task?

Natalie Anderson: The most complicated thing was -- well, me and Nadi first of all, we ran into this stupid kid who was giving us directions. We honestly were in the cave for about 10 minutes, just running around looking for our clue, because we just ran in like crazy people. And then we had to run back out and actually do the task the way I was instructed to get it done.

Altogether, I think it took at least 45 minutes at the mushrooms, with the messing up and the errors and then the coming back out. The cave was enormous, so confusing.

I don't know what other people did to find the mushrooms, but at the end, the only reason I found the blue mushrooms is there was like a little painted spot at the top of the cave, because the blue mushrooms were the hardest to find. So yeah, it probably took 45 minutes altogether.

Reality TV World: How much studying had you two done throughout the Race, and based upon what you saw during last night's finale, if you had made it to the final leg and had to do the flag Roadblock task, which one of you do you think would've done it the best and why?

Nadiya Anderson: Yeah, if we had made it, finding out that the finale was in New York was such a hard pill to swallow, because we're from here, we've lived here, we were born in New York. It was kind of a really hard pill to swallow. And then finding out what the challenge is, Natalie definitely would have done the height challenge, because I'm kind of the punk when it comes to heights.

I'm kind of not the daredevil. And I definitely would've done the language challenge. I think we would've had a real advantage on that because we know the difference between Indonesian and Bengali. We know how it looks on paper.

Even if we didn't know the actual words, we could've figured out the difference between Bengali and Indonesian because we're from that part of the world as well. And that was really hard to see the other teams struggle so much. It only made us realize that, you know, we would've done extremely well in that one challenge.

Reality TV World: You guys finished third or fourth in the majority of legs this season, and you had even won two legs -- which is pretty impressive. Knowing how well you two had done, did it frustrate or surprise you that the winning team had never won a prior leg of the Race? Some viewers are arguing that Josh and Brent really didn't deserve to win because they just kept getting lucky, so what are your thoughts on all that?  

Natalie Anderson: Well you know, I definitely feel luck plays a huge part in the Race. If luck is on your side, it can make or break you. In the past, [LaKisha "Kisha" Hoffman and Jennifer "Jen" Hoffman] of all-stars, they didn't win a single leg. I don't know if their track record was as bad as the Beekmans', but they won the whole thing.

It's like people who argue that they don't deserve to win are completely -- I don't even know what to tell them. It's like, "Get away from your computer and pick on somebody else," because the Beekmans, they deserved to win. When me and Nadi started, we were always at the top of the starting [points].

And when it mattered, we dropped the ball. The Beekmans did the opposite. And they, I feel, they took -- in our eyes, they took our spot away in the finals. It's not like they sucked in the finals. They kicked ass in the finals and they won, so I don't understand why people would even say that. It's just beyond me.

Reality TV World: Disregarding the fact Josh and Brent won the Race, it seemed pretty clear throughout the Race they weren't really seen as a threat. So could you explain why you didn't want to align with them instead of two strong teams? It seemed like the better strategic move would've been to keep them around at the time, no?

Nadiya Anderson: I mean, one of the reasons that we didn't get close to Brent and Josh is because we never were racing with them. We were always ahead of the pack, and they were always behind. So we never got to interact with them in challenges. We never got to interact with them at Detours. We were constantly with Trey and Lexi, Jaymes and James, and [Abbie Ginsberg and Ryan Danz].

Abbie and Ryan, we rubbed each other the wrong way. And Lexi and Trey and Jaymes and James, we got along. The Beekmans were definitely a non-factor for us, as we put it, during the Race. And it came back to bite us in the end -- two times. They did an amazing job coming up and taking it all in the end.

Like Natalie said, it was a comforting factor in a way to know that even though they took our spot in the finals, them winning it all made it just a little bit easier for us to be happy for them, because they really took it into over-drive and proved themselves when they took the whole thing.

Natalie Anderson: Also, it was a strategic move for us to keep the Beekmans with us. We felt like if the Beekmans were in the final -- if there were the Final 4 teams and then it came down to the Final 3 -- like Nadi said, when we saw Josh and Brent in Barcelona, we were so excited because it wasn't the crazy, competitive, outgoing, crazy, psycho team of Abbie and Ryan.

Because they, for us, were the No. 1 competition. So when we had them, we were like, "Cake walk! The Beekmans! They'll be at the end as usual!" And you know, whatever, that obviously didn't go as planned. (Laughs) 

Above is the first half of Natalie and Nadiya's interview. Check back with Reality TV World soon for the concluding portion. Also, to read the first half of our interview with Josh and Brent, click here. To begin reading Trey and Lexi's interview, click here. For more interviews with the Final 4 teams, check back with us throughout the week. 


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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