The Amazing Race eliminated "Best Friends" Brodie Smith and Kurt Gibson during Friday night's broadcast of the CBS reality competition's 28th season.

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Brodie and Kurt became the seventh team eliminated from the around-the-world competition after they arrived at the Race's tenth Pit Stop at the Bajra Sandhi monument in Bali, Indonesia in last place.

Brodie and Kurt got U-Turned, meaning they had to complete both sides of the Detour task, and therefore seemed to have little chance of making up lost time.

During an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Brodie and Kurt talked about their The Amazing Race experience. Below is the first half. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion.

Reality TV World: How long after Sheri LaBrant and Cole LaBrant did you finally arrive at the Pit Stop?

Kurt Gibson: Well, that is the question that is unknown!

Brodie Smith: A lot of different rumors are spreading around, not rumors, but I guess people saying how long we were. I think when we got there, [host Phil Keoghan] told us, like, 10 minutes.

Kurt Gibson: I think it was like 15-20 minutes.

Brodie Smith: Yeah, Phil said, he was like, "Man, you guys actually made it really close." And obviously the editing too makes it look like we were kind of close as well, like we were coming right up [behind Sheri and Cole].

Kurt Gibson: It just felt like we weren't close because I remember Jodie, one of the production people, saying we were, like, 45 minutes behind.

Brodie Smith: Yeah, because in our heads, [Dana Borriello and Matt Steffanina] and Sheri and Cole were probably not that far behind us on the Detour just because that Detour took pretty much every team the same amount of time to do.

And then the seaweed Detour was at least 45 minutes to an hour of total time, and then I'm pretty sure everyone did the Roadblock [in] the same [time] -- unless Cole just sat up there for an hour, which I'd highly doubt. It did seem like he was kind of iffy on it. My guess is he probably spent 10 more seconds longer waiting up there. So yeah, I don't think we were that close.

Reality TV World: It seemed like you got through the seaweed Detour task as fast as possible. So would you say with almost 100% certainty you would have survived this leg had another team gotten U-Turned?

Brodie Smith: Oh, if we could've U-Turned somebody behind us, we would've definitely beaten that team. (Laughs) I mean, I know that's confident, but I have great confidence that me and Kurt -- if it was a head to head match-up at that seaweed challenge, at that Roadblock, and then at that sprint to Phil, we would've beaten whatever team we U-Turned behind us.

Kurt Gibson: We did not get through that seaweed [fast] though.

Brodie Smith: No, that seaweed was hard!

Kurt Gibson: It took us almost an hour. Roughly an hour. But I'm sure it would've taken the same amount of time for another team. But if we were able to U-Turn somebody else, I don't think we would've lost our lead at that challenge.

Brodie Smith: No.

Kurt Gibson: So I think we would've been fine. And that Roadblock was just kind of a...

Brodie Smith: Do it!

Kurt Gibson: Climb up and jump off, and then take a short cab ride to the Pit Stop. So, I think, you know, if we had gotten to U-Turn somebody else, we would still be in the Race. But that's just not the way it worked out.

Reality TV World: You guys seemed to handle your elimination pretty well, but I'm sure it was still devastating. Do you think it's harder to leaving the Race when it's out of your control rather than if you had made a big mistake or something?

Brodie Smith: Yes! One-hundred percent. Me and Kurt said all along that if we were going to get eliminated and not win, we would like it to be our [mistake] -- because of something we did wrong.

And yeah, that leg was definitely tough because there was nothing we could do differently. We started last, we passed two teams, and we were doing well in that leg. We probably would have passed another team and finished second, but you know, there was just nothing we could do.

Reality TV World: Knowing you guys won so many legs and got eliminated all because of a U-Turn, how do you feel about the fact Sheri and Cole are still in it when they got saved twice on non-elimination legs? Is that sort of a tough pill to swallow?

Kurt Gibson: No, I don't think so. I mean, social media might disagree with me, but you know, those things are written before the Race even starts, right? So the fact they had finished in the back during those two legs was just kind of a matter of chance

Brodie Smith: Yeah.

Kurt Gibson: And you know what? It's just kind of the way the cookie crumbles there. And to their credit, they've gotten better each and every leg of the Race.

Brodie Smith: Yeah, and I think the show wouldn't be that interesting and do as well as it has over the years if it was just whoever the best team is, is going to win. It wouldn't be that fun to watch. There is a lot of chance; There is a lot of luck. There's a lot of things that play into the Race.

And, you know, they got lucky that the two times that they finished last, they didn't get eliminated. So, there's nothing to really say about it. It's not like they did something that hurt me and Kurt's chances of winning. It was just that they got lucky they didn't get eliminated in two legs.

Kurt Gibson: We were hoping there would've been a non-elimination in the Bali leg for us, (laughs) but we unfortunately did not get lucky on that.

Reality TV World: You probably understood why Tyler Oakley and Korey Kuhl U-Turned you, because at the end of the day, it was a compliment to how good you guys were as a team. But did you leave the Race with any hard feelings toward Burnie Burns and Ashley Jenkins? They obviously sealed your fate by making sure you were the only team U-Turned.

Brodie Smith: Well, for me, we had a lot of talks that weren't shown on the Race with Tyler and Korey and Burnie and Ashley, and even Dana and Matt. We were talking about how fun it's been competing against one another and how we wanted to have, you know, the best teams at the end.

And so, I was a little thrown off seeing how Tyler and Korey U-Turned us just because, in my mind, I thought that they wanted us to be there with them at the end, to you know, have that one big final competition leg. But obviously, they had a strategy and they went for the win. And that's completely fine.

And same thing with Burnie and Ashley. We had worked with Burnie and Ashley a lot in The Amazing Race, leading up to that point. And so, it was definitely at the moment, one of those things where we couldn't really -- we were shocked, I would say.

To see what Tyler and Korey and Burnie and Ashley did at the time, we were definitely shocked, but looking back on it, they were in the Race, they had finished second to us multiple times and they had a chance to eliminate us, and they took it.

Reality TV World: I think it was interesting how Kurt did mostly all of the Roadblocks up front, leaving Brodie to do the second half of them. Why did you two decide on that strategy? Do you think it would've made more sense to alternate so you'd each get a chance to rest and then in the case there's a puzzle or something down the road, Kurt could still do it?

Brodie Smith: Well, they didn't really show it on the Race, but I had a torn ACL and actually had a torn meniscus a couple of months before the Race. And so, that was an issue for us. There was a lot of -- I wouldn't say fear -- but there was a lot of concern that some Roadblocks I would either do really poorly on or potentially not even be able to do.

So the dancing one, for example, there's no way with my knee I would've been able to do that dance. And so, we would've gotten eliminated had I done that Roadblock. So unfortunately for us, there were a lot of times where, if the Roadblock wasn't something I knew exactly what it was -- and I knew I could do it -- Kurt had to do it.

And just the way it turned out, a lot of the clues they gave you for the Roadblock and where we were, it just seemed like something that was going to be physical and something that Kurt would be better at doing vs. my knee. And so, we went that way.

Kurt Gibson: I think our thought process was with a lot of the Roadblocks, we arrived there first or very close to it. And the ones that we did arrive to first, it was kind of a disadvantage, especially with Brodie's knee, because we couldn't see what they were doing. And a good example is, in Armenia, the oil change. The cluebox was at a weird desk with all the old antique furniture.

Brodie Smith: There were a bunch of jars and stuff.

Kurt Gibson: Yeah the jars. And I remember Brodie saying, "This looks like a memory challenge. You should probably do this one." And I was like, "Okay, fine," you know? So I do it and, of course, it's an oil change.

Brodie Smith: Which I could have done.

Kurt Gibson: It would've been a good thing for Brodie to do because it doesn't involve any, like, physical activity that would hurt his knee. So at that point, because we were winning, it was kind of a disadvantage because of Brodie's knee.

Brodie Smith: That was definitely a struggle for us -- being in the front and not being able to see what other teams were doing. Especially for the teams behind us, if you get to a Roadblock and you see every guy doing the Roadblock, you're probably going to have a guy do the Roadblock if you have a guy on your team.

Just because it would probably be something physical. So, there's definitely an advantage to not being in first. And so, for us, unfortunately my knee and not being able to do some stuff, that was definitely a problem, for sure.

Check back with Reality TV World soon for the concluding portion of Brodie and Kurt's exclusive The Amazing Race interview.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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