Leo Temory and Jamal Zadran finished The Amazing Race's 31st season in third place during the two-hour finale broadcast on CBS.

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Leo, 31, and Jamal, 30, who raced as cousins from Pasadena, CA, and Houston, TX, claimed third place when they crossed the finish line in Detroit, MI, after racing through ten countries, 18 cities, and across more than 25,000 miles.

The guys had previously competed on Season 23 of The Amazing Race as well as The Amazing Race: All-Stars.

Colin Guinn and Christie Woods won the $1 million grand prize, while Tyler Oakley and Korey Kuhl finished in second place. Behind Leo and Jamal were Nicole Franzel and Victor Arroyo in fourth place.

During an exclusive interview with Reality TV World after the finale aired, Leo and Jamal talked about their experience on the show and tough loss. Below is the concluding portion of what they had to say.

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Reality TV World: After you guys U-Turned Nicole and Victor, they were pretty mad at you guys and said they weren't going to speak to you. Did it surprise you how mad they were, especially considering they had attempted to U-Turn you in the past?

Jamal Zadran: I'm a big believer that if you want to race The Amazing Race, you've got to experience the full race. And by that, I mean you have to be U-Turned at least once if you race on The Amazing Race.

But for them to be mad, it was just a game. I mean, we had been U-Turned three times and we've never let that affect our game. We just continued pushing and considered it part of the game. If it wasn't, then it wouldn't be there.

So for them not to talk to us on that leg, it was like, "Whatever, let that affect your game because we can still focus on what we have to do, and we're not going to hold any kind of grudges."

But when thinking about it, who else are we going to U-Turn? There's only five teams left, we knew Colin and Christie and Tyler and Korey had already left. So we only had "Team Fun" [Becca Droz and Floyd Pierce] and Nicole and Victor, so we had to take one of those two.

And the only reason that we had was that they voted for us on a U-Turn when they said that they weren't, so that was the only reason that we had. "Team Fun" had never done anything to us. So, no hard feelings.

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Reality TV World: Did you guys feel a sense of comradery with the other Race teams all season or do you think Race teams just worked together towards the end to take out the last remaining Big Brother or Survivor team, which turned out to be Victor and Nicole?

Leo Temory: We never worked together with anybody. That was actually news to us when they were like, "Let's make this an all-Amazing Race [Final 3]." We saw that last night, when they were like, "Let's make this an all race thing," which is kind of weird.

Because you'll see everyone being friendly and working together but we're sort of the outcasts and doing our own thing. And then all of a sudden, now towards the end, everyone turned their back on Nicole and Victor, which was kind of messed up.

But before that, they were always sitting next to each other in the airport and were always really friendly.

So I think it's more messed up doing that than being on your own -- doing one thing and then end up changing your mind towards the end. I think that's worse, but everyone runs the Race a certain way. Everyone wants to get ahead, but it is what it is.

Jamal Zadran: For Leo and I, we would be the last team to do that, especially going into the eleventh leg, because we've been in that position of what Nicole and Victor felt like on Season 23 when everyone else ganged up and did that Roadblock together.

We're racing by ourselves and for ourselves, individually. We weren't really asking for help or giving help out, especially when it gets to crunch time like that though. There wasn't any kind of plan orchestrated, you know, or gameplan to take them out.

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Reality TV World: When you guys were shown making it to the finish line, Eliza Orlins was shown rolling her eyes at you. (Laughs) Do you have any idea what that was about? Footage definitely zoomed in on her face and she didn't look happy.

Jamal Zadran: For Leo and I, we're not there to win people's votes or be the most favorite team. We are competitors and so we're going to [upset] some teams and other teams are going to hate us.

But at the end of the day, we're not there to win [support]. We're not politicians, we're not there to win for class council or president of whatever club -- we're there to be a competitive team to win a million dollars.

We might have rubbed them the wrong way because [Eliza and Corinne Kaplan] were only in it for four legs, and two out of those four legs, we won first place. So, it might've rubbed them the wrong way, like, "Oh, they were too competitive. They're not helping us out how we thought they would."

But it's like, no, we're not there to help, we are there to race. If you need help out of the race, we'll help you, but we're not going to hold your hand and teach you every single thing.

But Eliza was at the afterparty and there's no hard feelings -- with any of the teams, quite frankly.

Reality TV World: After racing two previous seasons of The Amazing Race and gaining more knowledge each time about how the show works, how did you prepare for your third season? What did you do to get yourselves ready?

Leo Temory: Mmm. (Laughs) I mean, being physically fit helps, and we did our best to try to stay in shape, but we were already doing that beforehand.

But a lot of people tell me, "Oh, I can't run," and I'm like, "You don't really have to be in the best shape of your life because if you win a challenge, you have cushion to not run as fast."

So, this time around, I don't think we did much. The main thing was just preparing our work lives to [let us go] for almost a month. That's about all we did.

Jamal Zadran: I mean, we definitely watched episodes over and over again though, new ones and past ones here or there.

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To read the first half of Reality TV World's exclusive The Amazing Race interview with Leo and Jamal, click here. And check out our Season 31 page to read interviews with the rest of the Final 4 teams.


About The Author: Elizabeth Kwiatkowski

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