Exclusive: 'The Amazing Race's Nicole Jasper and Travis Jasper talk (Part 1)

The Amazing Race "Married ER Doctors" team of Nicole Jasper and Travis Jasper finished in third place during Sunday night's broadcast of the CBS reality competition's two-hour finale.


"Dating Couple" Jason Case and Amy Diaz team was the first team to cross the 23rd season of The Amazing Race's finish line in Juneau, Alaska, claiming the $1 million grand prize. "Exes" Timothy Sweeney and Marie "Reebs" Mazzocchi finished in second place, and "Cousins" Leo Temory and Jamal Zadran were the fourth-place team.

In an exclusive interview with Reality TV World on Monday, Nicole and Travis talked about their The Amazing Race experience.

Below is the first half of Nicole and Travis' interview. Check back with Reality TV World soon for the concluding portion and for more interviews with the Final 4 teams.

Reality TV World: How far behind Tim and Marie do you think you finally made it to the finish line?


Travis Jasper: What do you think, Nicole? Maybe close to an hour or so?

Nicole Jasper: Yeah, I think we were about an hour.

Reality TV World: Did you guys fully anticipate being the third-place team once you got to that finish line or did you think you had any chance of finishing higher than that?

Travis Jasper: Well we got a clue saying we were going to the Pit Stop...

Nicole Jasper: Yeah, the finish line. And we knew.


Travis Jasper: They had left a ways before us, so yeah, we knew.

Reality TV World: Okay, so it sounds like you didn't think there was much of a chance either of the two teams ahead of you could get lost or anything like that.

Travis Jasper: No.

Nicole Jasper: No.

Travis Jasper: We knew better because these were strong teams. The likelihood of that for us we knew was slim to none. They would've had to have a car accident or something.


Nicole Jasper: Yeah, something horrific. They were literally driving to the Pit Stop, or to the finish line.

Reality TV World: Do you think the show edited Leo and Jamal's Race pretty accurately or do you think they got a fairly good edit considering some of the controversial moves they pulled this season?

Travis Jasper: The thing about the Race is you're doing your own race and you don't know what's going on with the other contestants, the other team, so I cannot fairly, actually, assess that.

Okay, I can tell you that there were interactions -- or things about us -- regarding the Afghanimals that I didn't think were necessarily exactly portrayed as [accurately] as possible, and that was the issue about how we maybe felt about them and interacted.

And we actually had great interactions with them, so that I can comment on. I don't know as far as how they were portrayed in their part of the Race, but we didn't see them.


Nicole Jasper: I think that for the times that we did see the Afghanimals, I thought that they did get favorable editing. I do think so. It was limited, what we saw, but based on what we saw in that time, I think there was favorable editing.

Reality TV World: You both prided yourselves on setting a good example for your children by running a good, clean, honest race. Looking back on your experience, do you think you accomplished that?

Travis Jasper: A good, clean, honest race?

Reality TV World: Yes.

Travis Jasper: Yes. I can tell you I think we ran a good, clean, honest race. And I know the questions have all been -- because I've seen it on social media, we've heard it -- about Nicole and the [octave instrument]. And I'm the first to say that understanding the exact situation, that that was not cheating and everyone called it cheating. It wasn't cheating.


I think people just don't understand, and the good news is, it's not my job to make them understand. It's me being comfortable knowing the truth myself, and so we ran a good, clean, honest race and had fun!

Nicole Jasper: Yes, and we tried to enjoy the moment and enjoy the places where we were and kind of take a minute to smell the roses -- as we were running of course. But I think we did, in that sense, what we set out to accomplish.

Reality TV World: Nicole, you seemed to do most of the tasks towards the end of the season. Do you think you guys might've mismanaged whom should do which Roadblock? Do you wish you went into the Race with maybe a different strategy on how to handle those or what do you think?

Nicole Jasper: Well actually, I thought we had a great strategy as far as the Roadblocks, because we knew that if there was anything with food or music, Travis was going to do it. And if it was anything potentially with dancing or jumping off of something, I would do it. We kind of misunderstood. Because of course when you get the clues for the Roadblocks, you get one sentence.

And so, when we got to that Roadblock with the [octave instruments], my interpretation was that it was going to be a dancing Roadblock -- not per se a musical Roadblock.

Because if we had thought by any means that it was going to be musical, I would definitely not have done it. It would've been Travis. So for us, it was definitely just misunderstanding what it was. You can't tell what the Roadblocks are, for the most part, before you open the envelope all the way.


Travis Jasper: Right, but there's no way [to know]. The clues can say one thing. For example, the first one, with the paragliding, Nicole's dream was that she was going to jump off something or fly across something, and when we opened that clue, we assumed it was for her and I was going to oblige.

It didn't matter how challenging. I just wanted her to fulfill one of her dreams, and it turned out that I had the opportunity to do the paragliding. There was no way you could've anticipated that, but that's the type of example.

Reality TV World: Going back to when you two decided to U-Turn Leo and Jamal, you said the main reason behind it was because they had lied to you about previously U-Turning Brandon Squyres and Adam Switzer. Was that all there was to it or was there a little bit more behind that -- like any personal reasons?

Travis Jasper: It was a few.

Nicole Jasper: There were actually a few different reasons, but we had actually -- when they put in the bonus clips, the bonus clips of that episode showed where we talked about our strategy. When we were driving, we were talking about the fact that this was our leg to come in first.

We wanted to guarantee that we would come in first. So who potentially, out of all the teams that we had seen that day, who was the closest to us? And the team that basically ran the highest risk of coming in before us were Jamal and Leo.


And so, we actually talked about this on-camera, about the fact that, yes, they had lied to us. But the big thing was that we wanted to guarantee that we came in first. And them being second, or them being in front of us and then us being in front of them, the only way that we felt like we could guarantee us coming in first was to U-Turn them.

Reality TV World: What did you guys personally think of Marie and what was your relationship like with her during the Race? It seemed like she annoyed and was disliked by many of the teams this season. However, some Racers I've spoken to have said she owns who she is and they respect that about her.

Travis Jasper: My thought was, she was really high energy. She was really loud, but she was extremely competitive. It was really difficult for me sometimes to be around with the loud because I'm so used to traveling, and even with kids, trying to be quiet and peaceful and set a great example.

And sometimes, I will say, as much as I do respect Marie and the talent and everything that she brought to the Race, sometimes I was a little bit embarrassed about how loud or obnoxious she could be in some of the public places where we were traveling. That was tough, but outside of that, I thought she was a tremendous competitor.

Nicole Jasper: She was fierce. She was a fierce -- Marie was a fierce competitor, and you cannot ever take that away from her. Now some of her social interactions, yeah, those were pretty questionable. But, you know, that was probably part of her strategy also. I mean, being loud and boisterous was definitely distracting, or potentially distracting, to other teams. So that worked to her advantage also.

Above is the first half of Nicole and Travis' exclusive interview with Reality TV World. Check back with us soon for the concluding portion and for more interviews with the Final 4 teams.






About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski