Eric Sanchez and Danielle Turner surprised us all by winning The Amazing Race: All-Stars this season. The two were the only hybrid team in the field. They met on season 9, began dating soon after, and were invited to participate on All-Stars together. Good decision. Their race was tumultuous at times, we saw them arguing throughout the season, but they pulled it together and became one of the more formidable teams in the history of The Amazing Race. Eric and Danielle stopped by and talked with us earlier today about their time on the show.
Below you can find both the written transcript of the interview, as well as the full mp3 audio.
So, you guys won. How does it feel? Was it tough keeping it a secret for these last few months?
Danielle: It really hasn’t been that hard actually, because I had it set in my mind that we’re not telling anybody. We’re not legally allowed to tell anybody and it’s just more exciting in the end when nobody knows.
Eric: You know, it’s actually a lot better keeping it a secret than not telling my family I got second last time and to be sad and disappointed. And when it’s going to be a good result, it’s a lot easier.
I’m a little curious as to how you guys got onto All-stars as a team. Was it your idea or did CBS come to you and say, “Would this work, teaming up for All-Stars?”
Eric: Well, CBS knew we were dating. We had actually gone to California for some prizes I won on my previous season and we had seen some people involved with the race and they knew we were dating. And when the option of All-Stars came up, I know there were some other teams they had thought about, some hybrid teams I guess, and they offered it to us and said they were excited about the possibility of us doing it, and we talked about it and decided it would be a pretty cool idea.
Do you have any idea what you’re going to do with the money yet?
Eric: Nothing actually exciting.
Danielle: Nothing exciting at all.
Eric: As bad as it sounds, like I would love to just say I was just going to go blow it and be crazy and have parties everyday for the next year, but I want to buy a house, I think it’s a good investment right now, buy my own house, and just kind of take it easy and live off of it a little bit and still work and have fun…
Throughout the season, mostly in the earlier episodes, you two were at each other’s throats a few times; was that overblown at all in editing or was it really rough at points?
Danielle: It was definitely overblown, it’s ridiculous. I mean, we did fight and we did argue, but that’s all they showed. We weren’t like that 24/7, that would be ridiculous, you know? But of course, they were just focusing on the little bickering we did, but we weren’t like that all the time, we got along most of the time I would say, but you’re in a very stressful situation, it’s very difficult to get along with anybody at that point with what we were going through…
Eric: I think if they take anybody’s life and film the worst 10 minutes of your day, they’re going to get an opinion of somebody and you’re going to see…they’re just going to make you think that’s how they are and this race especially, they made a lot of the teams look like they were at each other’s throats, and it’s not how it was most of the time.
Was it difficult to watch that from home?
Eric: No, it was kind of humorous actually to watch and remember why we were fighting and getting in that huge argument for cappuccino just seems ridiculous for everybody…
Danielle: It was like, who cares at the end of the day. But you know what, it’s like you’re so nuts, that the littlest of things was an argument.
Specifically, was there anything that was edited out of this season that you wish they would have shown more of?
Danielle: Well, they edited out in last night’s episode, there was a road block that we had to jump off of a cliff and I was so proud of myself but they didn’t show it. What else…
Eric: We got to do the one challenge over there, the rock climbing, and nobody did it. I actually did the rock climbing and I was kind of mad they didn’t show me do that because nobody else could do it, I completed it. So I was kind of bummed they didn’t put that in there.
Who did you feel were your toughest opponents throughout the season?
Eric: You know, honestly, you hear it a lot, but people…honestly for this race, it’s the race course. I mean you can’t really, looking at the team, so much luck is involved and making the right choice, the race is setup so that anybody can win. And having done it once, I already know that, so I didn’t really feel like we had anybody to compete against except ourselves, and if we ran a good leg, if you run a perfect leg, you can’t lose because somebody else is going to mess up.
What would you say was your favorite place to visit on this race or the previous one?
Eric: On the previous one I really liked Greece and Thailand and stuff like that. On this one, I liked Patagonia, I liked down in Argentina, I thought it was really pretty.
Danielle: I liked Argentina actually too…
Eric: You see the glaciers and stuff like that, it was really nice.
I’m just curious about last night, how many minutes did you beat Dustin and Kandice by?
Danielle: We beat Dustin and Kandice by 10 minutes I would say. It felt like a long time, maybe it wasn’t even that long, but it felt like a long time.
Eric: Yeah, I dunno, it felt like we were there…it felt like quite a while. So it could have been anywhere from 10 to 15 minutes or so.
Danielle, you especially seemed pretty stressed out in that cab ride back; was that just the most brutal ride ever?
Danielle: It was so stressful. It’s like the extreme. I mean, after all these weeks and all this stress you go through, and it’s like those final few more seconds that you’re going to be at the finish. You’re like, please let this be over and let us win. I mean, you’re that close, it’s the worse feeling ever, it really is.
Anything coming up in your personal lives that you’d like to discuss at all?
Danielle: I mean, there’s nothing set in stone right now, but we’re both going to try to do things, pursue things that we enjoy and see what happens. Nothing’s set yet, but we’ll see, you never know.
(Interview Conducted by Oscar Dahl)
(Image Courtesy of CBS.com)
Senior Writer, BuddyTV
