Sam Hay and Geoff Stick's Amazing Race adventure nearly didn't happen.
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Watching the first season of the famous show's Australian edition, an advertisement flashed up to apply for the next season, and using typical Aussie logic of "f*** it, why not", the flatmates went to enter.
But it wasn't that easy.
"We ended up having issues with our video, we couldn't get it to upload," Hay said.
"In the end, we had an hour until cut off and we thought 'oh well, we'll try and upload it', it was taking forever so we went out and got some dinner.
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"We thought if it didn't upload it didn't really matter and we got back, luckily it had done in time."
Subjected to a "long and tedious" application process of almost three months, the pair had several FaceTime meetings and were flown to Melbourne before almost accepting their dream was over until they received another email six weeks later.
Several emails later, the duo thought they were getting close, and with their spot effectively confirmed, they decided to tell almost anyone who would listen.
"When we found out we were on it but it wasn't like official, we were playing indoor netball and we'd gone to Kmart to do our groceries before we went to netball," Stick said.
"We jumped in the car and briefly read this email that was like 'congratulations, you have been selected' and it said we were on the race.
"So we were ringing everyone, telling everyone about it and after netball and after we went out, even though it was a Wednesday, we read the full email and it said 'this is strictly confidential, you can't tell anyone'.
"So everyone was always asking about it and we were forever denying it from there."
When the time to finally film their adventures came around, the show's 22 contestants (11 pairs) spent four days in Sydney doing promotional and preparation tasks before getting on with it.
From there, they flew to the Philippines, India, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, France and finally Cuba, where they were the fifth pair eliminated from the race to finish seventh overall.
After a fifth-place finish in Manila's first stage, India became the team's stomping ground - taking out both legs in the Asian subcontinent and putting targets on their back rather quickly.
We were ringing everyone, telling everyone about it ... we read the full email and it said 'this is strictly confidential, you can't tell anyone'. So everyone was always asking about it and we were forever denying it from there."
- Geoff Stick
The next stage - where they finished second - sent them to the UAE, a leg which turned out to be one of their highlights due to being horse racing fans as they were sent to Dubai's Mayden Racecourse where they had to pick a winner.
Unfortunately from there, the race began a slow downfall for the loveable Launcestonians, eliminated four episodes after Dubai.
"We had fun all the way through, like even when we were eliminated ... we had two days before everyone flew out, so we were stuck in the hotel and we were just sitting in the hotel drinking beers and smoking Cuban [cigars] in Cuba and that sort of stuff," Stick said.
Hay added: "We didn't have any of our own money, so we had to use the left-over leg money."
The fun didn't stop there, with the pair winning a $10,000 trip with VIP passes to the Japan MotoGP as well as a state-of-the-art home entertainment system from Bing Lee.
THE EDITING PROCESS
Looking back on it, the housemates agreed they certainly got both the good and the bad of the editing process that comes with reality television.
Sam was saved from embarrassment an unaired abseiling challenge which saw him in tears while the pair's interviews to camera painted them in a good manner.
"In the interviews, we had big opinions, just mouthed everyone, and they made us look like absolute sweethearts, which we were but we also mouthed off a lot," the pair said.
But on the flip side, the duo's use of their 'express pass' - which they won alongside the MotoGP experience - went unaired and wasn't mentioned to fellow contestants.
The other teams then voted Sticky and Sam for a U-turn, meaning they were forced to do both tasks of a 'detour', which typically sees teams do only one.
This also went unaired, painting it out that the Tassie boys got lost en route to their final destination.
Stick was also left slightly bitter about the edit's focus on the fact he has one arm.
"We knew when we went on that we were on because I had one hand, so I didn't like how they used that one clip all the time saying "because I had one hand"," he said.
Hay added: "That's one thing they repeated, that one little snippet like 100 times to make it look like we always talked about it."
AMAZING RACE: ALL STARS?
When asked if they would do it again, it didn't take long for Sticky to reply with "f*** yeah, I'd go tomorrow".
But the pair haven't been too impressed with the format of the recent season, which was restricted to Australia due to COVID-19.
"Channel 10 has taken it over and it's a different format and there's things like intruders coming in midway through the race which we don't agree with, so we got on Twitter and mouthed off about that," Hay said.
"Beau Ryan, who is the new host, he hit back at us at one stage and said 'hope to see you guys on all-stars', so maybe that will be our next thing.
Stick added: "Because it's a different network, they sort of disregard our season, like they say season two just went and we were season two, that sort of thing."
Taking to Twitter in February, Hay posted "Just gonna put this out there ... Sticky & Sam with an extra 10 years life experience since our season, beat every other team from any other season in an All Stars.
He then added: "I'll double down then.... no team in any version of the Amazing Race worldwide would beat Sticky and Sam right now."
WHERE ARE THEY NOW?
The pair described the changes in their lives as "massive" since their time on The Amazing Race Australia.
No longer housemates as both as married, Sam has two children (a five and a three-year-old), recently bought a new house in Hillwood and owns Launceston restaurant Pickled Evenings while working full-time at Buckby Motors.
Sticky has a younger child (a two-year-old), is in the process of building a house and is a coordinator at Launceston City Council.
After brushing with reality TV fame, Hay said he went from being recognised daily, to weekly, monthly and now yearly, while Stick gets introduced to new employees as the guy from The Amazing Race.
We can't complain with how it turned out, we got paid to go around the world.
- Sam Hay
"We can't say we'd change anything now because we've got our kids and wives and houses and all that sort of stuff, but we've spoken about we should have moved to Melbourne or Sydney where there were bigger opportunities and the teams there got looked after by publicists," Hay said.
"We did a couple of things ... a few different functions - the Give Me 5 for Kids telethon was pretty cool.
"We can't complain with how it turned out, we got paid to go around the world."