Exclusive: 'The Amazing Race: All-Stars' Luke Adams talks frustration and meltdowns (Part 1)

The Amazing Race: All-Stars eliminated Luke Adams and Margie O'Donnell during Sunday night's fifth episode of the CBS reality competition's 24th overall season and third all-stars edition.


The "Mother and Son" team became the fourth team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's fifth Pit Stop at Colombo Rowing Club in Colombo, Sri Lanka in last place. Margie and Luke got stuck on a flight that arrived in Sri Lanka many hours behind the rest of the pack.
 
Luke and Margie previously finished in third place on The Amazing Race's fourteenth season and eighth place on Season 18.

In an exclusive interview via email with Reality TV World, Luke talked about his third The Amazing Race experience. Below is the first half of Luke's interview. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion. To begin reading our exclusive interview with Margie, click here.

Reality TV World: I'm sure it wasn't easy for you to watch last week's episode when you kind of had that meltdown inside the bar. Could you talk about that a little bit? What was it like watching it back and do you find it a little embarrassing or anything like that?

Luke Adams: There was one important part that was not shown on TV. We tried to switch the task and we realized how the deejaying task is a hearing-based task. It's pretty much based on following the rhythm & music. There's NO way that I could have pulled it off so we realized that we were left with no choice but go back to martini-glass task.


I got really flustered with how the Detour tasks were designed. I thought it was unfair how other teams had two tasks to choose while we were stuck with one task. It was a pure frustration. It was not easy to watch teams come by and go quickly. I was in Race-mode and just want to finish the task ahead of one team at least!

I was more frustrated about how the deejaying task was not deaf-friendly to me. I mean, I have done a couple musical tasks on previous Races but it was barely enough for us to be able to complete the tasks. But for deejaying task? There's no way we could have done it as a team.  It would've been nice if we were able to switch the tasks but we couldn't.

In the past, I think we only had to switch the Detour tasks once so we never really had to switch the tasks. I really thought we could pull it off with the martini-glass task but it was pretty hard!

It took a lot, lot, lot of practice to make it perfect. People have told me that they could see how the Detour tasks were unfair and share my pain so that's nice to know that people could see why I was pretty frustrated in the bar. Wish they have showed the part where we tried to switch the tasks. 

Reality TV World: During your meltdown, Margie was shown saying you have a low frustration level and don't handle stress well. Considering the Race is basically all stress and it's so competitive, do you think the Race may not be the best environment for you or do you just treat it as a learning experience to face those issues head on?


Luke Adams: The Amazing Race is my game for sure! I'm pretty extremely competitive. I've been an athlete all of my life. I have played basketball all of my life. I hate losing. I love to win. Mom and I ran 23 legs. On our first season, I had a lot of moments where I got pretty emotional during the challenges. Remember that, I was only 23-years-old, just got out of college with no international travel experience.

Going on the first The Amazing Race blew my mind. Hunger and fatigue was just so intense on the Race, it's something that I have never experienced before I came on the first Race. I had no idea what to expect. It was not easy to run the Race for 23 days straight. There were only two times where I had a breakdown was during the Chekhov task and Surfboard task.

I definitely should have taken a step back and taken a deep breath and taken a look at the big picture to see what is wrong with it instead of just breaking down and panicking. That was a big learning lesson for me after what happened at the surfboard task.

I should have stopped and stepped back to take a couple breaths, and then figure out what's wrong. On our second race, I was much better at handling the stress. I was doing great all the way up until the tea task.

I actually got really sick during the tea task. I drank for four hours. Overload with caffeine! I threw up so much during the task. That part was left out. People did not get it why I broke down and cried. They didn't show the part where I threw up.


I guess it didn't want to make the Snapple tea look bad!  Besides, I'm not only one Racer who had a couple breakdowns! There are a lot of Racers that had a breakdown too! During the bartending task, it wasn't my finest moment. It's about being not able to switch the tasks that lead to a big frustration moment then I was able to bounce back after that. It was a big learning experience for sure.

Reality TV World: How do you feel this season compared to your two prior seasons overall? Because it seems like the tasks this time around might've been more of an obstacle for you than ever before. Do you agree with that?

Luke Adams: There are many challenges where the teams flew through so quickly and where the teams struggled with so much. My mom and I always find a way to make it work. Only one biggest challenge that we faced was the deejaying task!

Reality TV World: Based upon things that happened during your first couple of seasons on the show, did you worry about your low frustration level going into this season? Is that something yourself and Margie had talked about with your mom prior to competing again?

Luke Adams: We talked about it how if I’ve gotten pretty frustrated then I should just take a step back and take a deep breath. That's what I did during the martini-glass task.  It felt so utterly impossible, so I had to go in the bathroom to get away from the camera for a second so I could just take a deep breath and take a step back to look at the big picture to see what was wrong.


I felt extra pressure with the camera staring at us. It’s not easy knowing that the whole world is going to watch! A little break away from the camera definitely helped me to cool down a bit. I can get a little crazy when I'm pretty competitive!

Above is the first half of Luke's exclusive interview via email with Reality TV World. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion. To begin reading our exclusive interview with Margie, click here.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski