The Amazing Race Online

Series cast summary:
	Phil Keoghan	-	Himself - Host 351 episodes, 2001-2019

Jill and her brother F.T. were originally applied for Season 1. Later, her brother was killed in 9/11, and John Vito and Jill race in remembrance of him during Season 3. After the race, they hosted a show that promoted Singapore tourism.

Status of relationships from Season 1 -

After the race ended, Emily and Brennan started dating each other, but broke up after a few months in early 2002.

Frank and Margarita, who were separated parents, initially reconciled. However, they have since divorced and Frank has remarried.

Lenny and Karyn broke up due to their differences.

Aaron (Season 3) accidentally stumbled upon one of the Pit Stops of Season 6 while backpacking in Europe.

Due to scheduling conflicts with the Season 9 finale and the premiere of the film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, Eric & Jeremy stated that they were unable to attend the premiere of the movie at the Cannes Film Festival, which was their prize for gaining first place on Leg 6. (The prize was awarded to the first team to arrive at the Pit Stop bearing two parchments and demonstrating that, when combined, they revealed a picture of Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man and a coded message; the first team to arrive at the Pit Stop did show the message and were awarded the prize) Eric & Jeremy later stated that CBS was going to give them a different prize to make up for it.

John Keoghan, Phil Keoghan's father, was the local greeter at the Te Puke Pit Stop in New Zealand in Season 13.

When describing the pit stop for each leg, Phil's voice-over originally said "the last team to check in here *will* be eliminated" for most legs, but would say "the last team to check in here *may* be eliminated" on non-elimination legs. This took away the suspense, as the audience knew based on the voice-over whether the leg was a non-elimination. Phil now says "the last team to check in here may be eliminated" on every leg to avoid spoiling whether that leg is a non-elimination leg.

In Season 10, for the first time ever, the winning team was allowed to contact their families at the finish line and tell them they had won. In previous seasons, the winning team had to wait until their families actually saw them win on television.

Fans, critics, and racers were lukewarm over the format changes implemented in Family edition of The Amazing Race. The main issues were the lack of international travel and watered down challenges tailored to families. The expanded cast also made it more difficult to develop individual story lines. Entertainment Weekly commented that "Half the fun of The Amazing Race has always been watching the inter and intra-couple bickering that goes with being chronologically late and lost in a foreign land. Seeing parents yell at their children in exotic New Jersey? Not so fun". USA Today shared similar opinions, adding that "the idea of being trapped in the back seat for a forced cross-country family drive comes closer to a nightmare relived than a dream come true." Racers were also disappointed that they did not have a chance to travel to more exotic locations; in one episode Marion Paolo commented "Why are we going to Phoenix, Arizona for? I want to go to New Zealand!", a statement that also summed up the general opinion of the season. In hindsight, the production team has admitted that the concept of a Family Edition "looked good on paper" but failed in execution, since child racers limited foreign travel for that season. Creators Bert Van Munster and Jonathan Littman doubt that the family format will be revived in the future.

Normally Pit Stops are 12 hours, however there have been exceptions:

In Season 1, at the end of Leg 5, teams were relocated to Gabès because of a sandstorm at the desert pit stop. Therefore, Leg 6 began in Gabès. This pit stop still holds the record of being the longest - 60 hours.

In Season 4, three legs had 36 hour Pit Stops, which occurred after Leg 3 in Gmunden, Austria; Leg 5 in Muiden, Netherlands; and Leg 7 in Alleppey, India.

Season 6 featured 36-hour pit stops in Stockholm, Sweden (after Lena & Kristy were eliminated at the farm on the night); Budapest, Hungary; Ethiopia and Xi'an, China.

Season 7 had 36-hour pit stops in Botswana (Leg 7); Jodhpur, India (Leg 8); Istanbul, Turkey (Leg 9) and London, United Kingdom There were also two 24 hour Pit Stops, after Leg 9 in Sepilok, Malaysia and after Leg 11 in Brisbane, Australia.

In Season 9, the Pit Stop in Leg 7 lasted 24 hours as the show's producers didn't want racers cluttering up the airport waiting 12 hours for the only direct flight to Perth, Australia via Dubai. Leg 11 was a 36 hour Pit Stop and teams were able to go on rides at the amusement park they had just visited.

Season 1 had many unique features that were changed or would not appear in later seasons:

1) The introduction of each episode featured Phil's voice giving a brief synopsis of the show with theme music in the background and the presentation of the teams. Future seasons would then simply have the theme music with the presentation of the teams. However, Phil's synopsis was absent in one episode.

2) Unlike in later seasons, Season 1 did not show running placements of teams on screen during each leg of the race, showing only the names and team identifier. Team placements were only shown when they checked in at the Pit Stop at the end of each leg. In addition, host Phil Keoghan greeted only the last team to check in at each pit stop. In future seasons, he would greet all teams at the end of each leg.

3) Route marker flags were yellow and white. In future installments, the flags changed colors to red and yellow so that teams could spot them more easily. The only exception being a leg in Vietnam, where the flag was white and yellow with a black stripe, so as not to be confused with the Vietnamese flag.

4) Clue boxes tended to represent the culture of the local pit stop. For example, the clue boxes in Zambia were a bamboo cylinder.

5) In every single leg of Season 1, the detour always came before the roadblock.

During the Early Show post-show interview, Colin proposed to Christie which she accepted. They were expected to be on the All Stars (Season 11), but they didn't make it because Christie was pregnant. The couple also gave one of their prize trips to fellow Season 5 racers Dennis and Erika.

45 potential teams for the race were sequestered at a hotel before Season 7 race began. Since teams were not allowed to speak to one another, brothers Brian and Greg originally contacted Heidi and Megan by sending them milk and cookies through a waiter.

The Amazing Race isn't Tyler's (Season 9) only traveling claim to fame. In 2004, he walked the whole length of Japan to impress his Japanese girlfriend as well as make a documentary about the experience called Kintaro Walks Japan. By the end of the trip, he was often running into many locals who already knew him as "Kintaro" from the TV news.

Linda Weaver (Season 8) reluctantly participated in two challenges directly related to racing. One was a go-kart race in Arizona, and the other involved traveling around Talladega Superspeedway in a bicycle. Weaver's husband, Roy, was killed in an accident when he was run over by a race car at Daytona International Speedway in 2004.

She wore a t-shirt with the name "Chris" on it for many legs of the race. Contrary to popular belief, Chris was not the name of her late husband, but her fiancé.

Season 4 had the most number of teams that have been first place. Nine of the 12 teams that competed in this season placed first at least once.

At the time Season 4 was filmed and broadcast, same-sex marriage was not legally recognized anywhere in the United States. Reichen and Chip were never legally married under U.S. law, though they were married in a religious ceremony; CBS decided to honor their description of themselves as "married" for the purposes of the show.

Season 6 featured many Olympic themed challenges such as water polo, track and field, swimming, and archery. The race also visited past Olympic cities including Oslo, Stockholm, and Berlin. This was due to the fact that the race was filmed during the same time as the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.

Season 4 was the last season where ties were allowed at the mat (and the subsequent distribution of additional first place prizes should there be a tie for first place). In subsequent seasons, even if teams arrived at the mat at the same time, an order would be determined, and the official check in times for teams arriving simultaneously would set a minute apart to avoid tying situations.

Season 12 introduced the Speed Bump and the U-Turn.

The story arc for Sarah Reinertsen and Peter Harsch in TAR10 showed them as a newly dating couple whose relationship collapsed due to Peter's unkind treatment of her. However, years after the race ended, Sarah confirmed that she and Peter were not and never had been dating, with that relationship being created in the editing room.

In Leg 2 of Season 10, Peter and Sarah switched their Detour task twice. This is the first time a team has switched Detours twice and still finished first in the same leg.

In Leg 6, the colleagues already in last, upon arrival at the Detour, received a clue instructing them to go directly to the Pit Stop. This has not been done to a team since Andre & Damon of Season 3. Additionally, Peter & Sarah were not received by a greeter at the Pit Stop. This is the first time since Pat & Brenda of Season 1 that a team has been eliminated without a greeter at the end of the leg. In the same leg, their car had a handicap sticker from the state of California.

The Season 9 race was the first one to start and end at the same location, Red Rocks Amphitheatre, near Denver. Other races have started and ended in the same city (Season 1 in New York City and Season 6 in Chicago), but the location of the start and stop lines have been in different parts of the city.

Eric (Season 9) canceled taxi reservations for Ray/Yolanda and BJ/Tyler early in Leg 9 but the team received no penalty. Joseph was standing with Jeremy as Eric called to cancel and said "That'll give us a good head start," leading some viewers to speculate that he was involved. Eric & Jeremy later stated that they almost were given a penalty for the incident, but since everyone got a taxi anyway and Eric & Jeremy got on a taxi last, it was not assessed.

When Phil introduced the final Roadblock in Season 9, he was standing between the flags of Canada and Antigua and Barbuda when he was speaking. Canada and Antigua and Barbuda (particularly Antigua) were two countries in which Phil spent a portion of his life. In a second scene of Phil at the Roadblock, he was standing in front of the New Zealand flag, an obvious homage to his native country.

Season 5 had many firsts for the series:

• Featured the first father/daughter team, cousins team, female twins team, and a competitor with dwarfism.
• The first (and so far only season) to visit all six inhabited continents.
• No time penalties or time credits were issued to any team (as seen broadcast).
• First contestant (Alison Irwin) from a previously aired reality show to take part in this race.

Season 7 featured several prizes, given to the winners of certain legs, that had never before been featured on the show. On the first leg, $10,000 went to each teammate (for a total of $20,000) for the winning team. On the fifth leg, a Toyota RAV4 went to each teammate. On the tenth leg, JVC home entertainment systems were rewarded. Previously, only vacations and cameras had been offered in this manner.

In addition, Travelocity replaced previous show regular sponsors American Airlines Vacations and Royal Caribbean International. Besides trips, the company also provided a special prize of $20,000 in vacation money, won by Ron & Kelly (in a new random-prizing system) on Leg 9 after matching the marking on the bottom of a gnome.

When BJ and Tyler (Season 9) offered Phil the dollar they received at the start of the leg that they didn't need, at the pit stop in Moscow, they told him "don't waste that opportunity." This was likely a reference to Phil's Discovery Channel show and book, No Opportunity Wasted.

Season 2 is the first season to have episode titles be quotes said by either the host or the racers.

It is the only race (excluding the Family Edition, which stayed entirely on North America) to not visit Europe; only connecting flights from Brazil to South Africa passed through Europe. Except for visits to Thailand and Hong Kong, and starting and ending in the United States, all other destination countries in Season 2 were in the Southern Hemisphere.

Three countries (South Africa, Thailand, and China) visited in the Season 1 were visited once again, as well as Alaska. New countries visited included Brazil, Namibia, Australia, and New Zealand. This was also the first season to visit the continents of South America and Oceania.

After the show, Season 2 contestant, Blake founded a reality television network.

In Season 5, several challenges were edited out of the program since they did not affect team placement. The first was a nut finding Roadblock in the markets of Dubai during Leg 9;

The clam-hunting task in the Philippines, presented as a normal challenge, was originally one of two Detour choices. The yellow Detour clue is visible in several Racers' hands, particularly Kim's, and the second Detour choice was never presented on-air.

In the final leg in Canada, there was a task where the teams had to find a clothing store in Banff and acquire jacket and caps. There is also a Roadblock where they have to build a tepee. Both these tasks were edited out of airing due to time constraints. Photos of both tasks were found in the official website.

Starting with Season 7, a change was made to the non-elimination leg penalty. In addition to being stripped of all their money and receiving no allowance for the next leg of the race, teams were forced to surrender all of their possessions, except for their passports and the clothes they were wearing, for the remainder of the race. (This penalty came to be referred to as "mugging" by fans.) They were also no longer allowed to beg for money prior to the start of the next leg (after the next leg started, they can beg for money). The racers could also receive or buy clothing or toiletries from other teams.

Uchenna and Joyce (Season 7) were originally scheduled to appear on Season 6. They were sequestered in Santa Monica, California at the beginning of that race, but were cut at the last minute as they were seen as too similar to the previous season's winners, Chip and Kim.

Host Phil Keoghan greeted teams at a race mat halfway through Leg 8 (Season 7) to hand them their next clue, marking the first time in the history of The Amazing Race that teams have stepped on a mat marker to be handed their next clue. Previously, teams only received route information stored in boxes or from locals after completing a task.

Ray proposed to Yolanda on the CBS Early Show on the morning after the Season 9 finale. While it was a total shock to her, Yolanda enthusiastically accepted.

Sarah (Season 10) reported in a post-race interview on "The Finish Line" that because of the Roadblock in the first leg a single team member could do a maximum of 7 Roadblocks instead of the usual 6 (as has been in place from Season 6). This rule was never mentioned on the show, although Karlyn performed 7 aired Roadblocks.

The Amazing Race: All-Stars is the first season without a parent/child team.

Season 3 is the only season in which every single country visited had never been visited on a previous season. New countries included Mexico, United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain, Morocco, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Malaysia, Singapore, and Vietnam.

The show said there were only two Yields, but there was another Yield on Leg 1 of Season 8 that didn't make it to air since it was not used.

The Roadblock of Leg 4 of All-Stars (Season 11) required the racers to search through a pile of letters for one addressed to them, written by a racer from their original season. While Kandice searches through the pile of letters, she jokingly asks, "What if it's from 'Bama?", a reference to their rivals Lyn and Karlyn from Season 10. When they open the letter and find out it's from Lyn, they state that Lyn was the more friendly of the two. This statement was followed by a video clip from Season 10 of Karlyn yelling at Dustin & Kandice at an airport ticket counter.

Season 1 contestants Joe and Bill got the name 'Team Guido' from their pet toy fox terrier, Guido. They were also the only team this season to have a nickname displayed on the screen along with their names and their team identifier.

Some former contestants become involved in production of the show:

Gary (Season 2) was a story editor during Season 5. Erika (Season 5) was a casting producer with the show in the mid-2000s.

The Amazing Race (2001) was nominated for the 2018 Emmy Award in the Outstanding Reality Competition Series category, but lost to RuPaul's Drag Race (2009).

Nearly every country featured in Season 5 had not been previously visited; these include Uruguay, Argentina, Russia (the race's first trip to Eastern Europe), Egypt, Kenya, Tanzania, United Arab Emirates (the race's first trip to the Middle East), Philippines, and Canada. The only exceptions were India and New Zealand.

Five previously unvisited countries were visited Season 7: Peru, Chile, Botswana, Turkey, and Jamaica, as well as Puerto Rico (the Race's first visit to the Caribbean islands).

On Leg 4, BJ and Tyler (Season 9) wore "Bowling Mom" t-shirts, in homage to Linda and Karen in Season 5.

Clues for Season 9 contained the national flags of the countries visited; teams were eventually required to arrange these flags for the final Roadblock.

Two new rules were made for the Season 10 installment of the race: The Intersection was introduced, a task where two teams were required to work together until otherwise instructed. If no other team was available when one team read the Intersection clue, they were required to wait for another team to show up before proceeding. The Intersection was also in conjunction with a Fast Forward, with the first team pairing to win to earn the Fast Forward for both teams; Instead of the previous money and baggage penalties for coming in last place, the last place team in a non-elimination leg became Marked for Elimination meaning that unless they place first in the following leg, they receive a 30 minute penalty at the mat, possibly allowing teams finishing behind them to overtake them in the final placings for that leg.

Season 10 was the first season to (nearly) circumnavigate the globe in a generally westward fashion, crossing the Pacific Ocean in the first leg and crossing the Atlantic on the final leg. Most other seasons (with the exception of Season 7 and Season 8) transversed the globe in a generally eastward direction; the first legs of these races had teams crossing the Atlantic Ocean or staying on the North America/South America landmass, and then crossing the Pacific on the final legs.

Dustin and Kandice (Season 10) were selected to race in The Amazing Race All-Stars (Season 11). Notably, Dustin and Kandice did not make the usual interview tours after their elimination in this race for the first time, as they were still racing in All-Stars when the episode in which they were eliminated aired. Dustin married her high school sweetheart prior to the start of All-Stars. In the pre-race interviews for All-Stars, Dustin states that Kandice was a bridesmaid at her wedding, which she might not have been had they not run the Season 10 Race together.

Phil Keoghan was asked to submit a list of 15 teams that he thought should return. Ten of them were chosen. The one he didn't choose was Eric & Danielle. He said, "I didn't think of that new combination, which actually is a really good one."

Flo and Drew (Season 3), who met and became a couple during the race, were asked to compete as All Stars. They declined because Flo felt the race brought out "the worst" in her and because she didn't want to do the race without Zach (her original partner).

Chip Arndt, the winner of Season 4, ran into racers Charla & Mirna and Teri & Ian on Leg 1 at Miami International Airport during the Season 11 Race. Chip was given permission to report his sightings but to not give any specific names on CBS' "Return of the Racers" blog.

In Leg 1 (Season 11), Mary wore a shirt saying "Missing" in reference to their allies The Cho Brothers (Erwin & Godwin) from Season 10. Later on, in Leg 2, David wore a shirt saying "Lost" with a picture of Phil on it; these same shirts had also been worn by Erwin & Godwin.

Zev Glassenberg, who competed with Justin Kanew on TAR15 and TAR18 (Unfinished Business) is the first Racer who has Asperger's Syndrome.

David and Mary (Season 10) appeared on The View. David revealed that he had originally auditioned for Survivor. The couple also received gifts from the show, including vacations, a Ford Explorer, and a new house

Not once has Leg 2 been a non-elimination leg.

Margaretta (Season 1) died on October 26, 2008, at the age of 67, after her cancer relapsed.

Nancy (Season 1) died on December 8, 2011, at the age of 56 after a long battle with ALS/Lou Gehrig's disease.

Season 3 featured the first father/son team (Dennis & Andrew).

The Season 3 Finish Line was in Gasworks Park in Seattle, Washington, the same exact place where the Starting Line was in Season 10.

Zach (Season 3) worked on NBC's production crew for the 2004 Summer Olympics.

Leg 4 (Season 4) marked the first time that a Roadblock took place before a Detour.

Charla and Mirna (Seasons 5 & 11) appeared on MADtv in an Amazing Race parody in the audience of The Price Is Right, but neither of them was chosen into Contestant's Row. They were also featured in recap on various episodes of The Soup on E!.

Along with fellow Season 5 team Chip & Kim, they all appeared on Bravo TV's Battle of the Network Reality Stars.

The trains that carried the teams in Sri Lanka (Season 6) and the town of Galle were heavily damaged by the tsunami caused by the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

Season 7 was the first edition to not strictly circumnavigate the world (by crossing the International Date Line exactly once); once teams traveled as far east as India, they returned to the United States traveling westward through Europe and the Caribbean. However, the route does approach that of a Great Circle on the globe.

BJ & Tyler (Season 9) were the first team to win the race and finish first in the final elimination leg. BJ & Tyler are also the first team to win the final three legs of the race. They are also the second team to ever win three consecutive legs. The first team to do it was Colin & Christie in Season 5.

BJ & Tyler are the only team to have finished last in two non-elimination legs after the rule change in Season 5, where last-placed teams must forfeit all of their money, as well as the rule change in Season 7, which required non-eliminated teams to surrender all possessions save their passports and "the clothes on their backs." Similarly, they are only the second team to win the race after finishing last, post-rule change; the first team to accomplish the same feat was Uchenna & Joyce (Season 7).

In the final 3 legs of the Season 9 Race, the order teams arrived at the Pit Stop were exactly the same.

The Season 9 third leg is double-length, broadcast over episodes 3 and 4. This is the earliest a double leg has appeared and was the first to include international travel over the middle portion.

In Leg 8 (Season 9), Eric and Jeremy questioned the intelligence of BJ & Tyler's choice of Detours by saying that they thought "they were supposed to be smart; didn't they go to Harvard and Stanford?" BJ did graduate from Harvard, but Tyler went to the University of California at Santa Cruz. Eric and Jeremy's comment is quite revealing though, since Tyler achieved some media attention in 1999 for his failed political-style "campaign" to be admitted to Stanford ("They'll Try Anything" Stanford Alumni Magazine). It is somewhat surprising that Eric and Jeremy could have learned about Tyler's connection to Stanford without remembering and relishing that Tyler was not admitted.

Season 10 was the first season to feature two Asian American teams: Erwin & Godwin (Korean American) and Vipul & Arti (Indian American). Kathy (Filipina American) from Season 3 was until this season the only Asian American contestant in Show history. This is also the first season to feature an African American Muslim team (Bilal & Sa'eed), an amputee (Sarah Reinertsen of Peter & Sarah, who has an artificial leg), and the race's first open lesbian (Lauren Marcoccio of Duke & Lauren).

Six new countries got their first visits from the Season 10 Race: Mongolia, Kuwait, Mauritius, Madagascar, Finland, and Ukraine. Additionally, Spain was visited and presented with tasks as well as holding a Pit Stop for the first time. The only other time the Race visited Spain was in Season 3 when it was used as a lay-over.

Season 10 was the first season to have teams revisit the exact same locations as previous racers had been in seeking their clues. This happened in three places: Leg 2 at Juyongguan Pass outside Beijing, China, first clue to start the leg. This location was also used by Season 1 in Leg 12 for a detour; Leg 12 at the Eiffel Tower in Paris, route clue. The Eiffel Tower was also used as a Roadblock in Leg 2 of Season 1; Leg 12 at the Place de la Concorde in Paris, Detour. In Leg 3 of Season 1 teams also went here to receive their clues after visiting La Grande Roue.

In Leg 3 and Leg 4 of Season 10 (Vietnam), all route markers were white and yellow instead of red and yellow. This was done because the flag of the vanquished South Vietnam also consisted of red and yellow stripes. Teams were not allowed to ride on motorbikes for safety reasons.

This is similar to Season 3's Leg 11 in which the teams traveled through Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, however, the route markers were made solid yellow in that season.

At the beginning of Leg 3 in Season 10, teams were not given any money and were not permitted either to beg for money or to sell items. Instead, they had to earn money in the Roadblock.

At the beginning of Leg 4, teams received 588,000 Dong VND (approximately USD $37) at the start of the leg. This was the first time in Race history the cash distribution was made in a currency in other than US dollars.

The prize for Leg 10 (Season 10) was given to the team that selected the "good luck charm" earlier in the leg that happened to match the one worn by the greeter at the pit stop. Unlike most former luck prizes, however, this one was awarded to the winners of the leg (Tyler & James).

The Finish Line for the Season 10 Race was located in Garrison, New York. This is only the second time in the history of the race it was not held in a major U.S. city. The first occurrence was in Season 8 where it was held in Lewiston, New York.

When teams flew to Paris, France, for their intermediate destination, it was the first time in the history of the race an intermediate destination was outside the United States or Canada.

Just prior to returning to New York City for the Season 10 post-race interview circuit, Lyn's house was ransacked

Although the show's website mentions that in Leg 3 (Season 11), two teams (Uchenna & Joyce and Rob & Amber) attempted the 40-foot climb part of the Detour and switched tasks, the switch isn't aired in the episode.

While teams have left the Pit Stop on the next leg prior to all teams arriving from the previous leg, the differential between Leg 7 and Leg 8 (Season 11) was the first time that this situation has been explicitly noted by the show; this is due to these two legs being shown as a double-length episode. The prior legs Leg 6 and Leg 7 also had the same occurrence but was not noted by the show.

In The Amazing Race: All-Stars, Leg 6, for the first time since its introduction, there was no "location indicator" at the pit stop due to the fact that the pit stop location had to be changed mid-leg.

Season 5 is the first time the Yield concept is introduced. A Yield is a placemat and marker where a leading team can force a lagging team to stop for a set amount of time.

On Leg 13, David and Jeff (Season 4) made a mistake in flying into Sydney to get flights to Hawaii. There were none until the next day, which put them far behind that they did not reach the Finish Line. This is the second time a team hasn't crossed the finish line, the first time being Joe and Bill in season 1.

Andre and Damon (Season 3) were officially detained in Leg 6, when their taxi took them far out of the way in Morocco and they encountered a local official who wanted to seize their passports. Andre and Damon refused, and The Amazing Race's security team had to come help them out of the situation.

In Leg 8, Meredith (Season 7) broke three bones in his foot after it had been run over during the elephant Detour, and later by a tuk-tuk. However, he did not reveal his injury to production, because he feared that it would force him to leave the race.

Controversy has surrounded the final leg of the Season 7 race: when Uchenna and Joyce arrived at the airport in San Juan, both Rob & Amber and Uchenna & Joyce were sold tickets for a flight leaving later than one whose gate was about to close. While Rob & Amber managed to get on this earlier departing flight, Uchenna and Joyce were shown by the gate as the boarding corridor between the gate exit way and airplane began to shut. After a commercial break, the boarding corridor reopened to the gate to pick up Uchenna and Joyce. No explanation was given as to why the gate reopened, which has led to widespread speculation about intervention by the production staff. In the "Revisiting the Race" special feature on the Season 7 DVD, Uchenna, Rob, and Phil Keoghan deny the accusations of intervention by the production crew. Uchenna describes his experience with finding the same airline agent at the gate who had previously informed him that there was no earlier available flight. Rob describes Uchenna running around frantically trying to get onto the flight, which the final edited version of the show does not portray. Phil cites the fact that the decision to re-open the door rested solely with the pilot, and that intervention by the production crew would have resulted in someone leaking such information out.

In a radio interview after Season 7, Uchenna and Joyce said that they won the race by 45 minutes, even though Rob and Amber were 7 minutes ahead of them at the first Miami clue-box at Rickenbacker Causeway.

On Leg 11, Jon and Al (Season 4) attempted to get on the same flight as the other teams, but their Race-provided credit card was not accepted by the airline due to computer problems, and they were unable to make that flight. As this was an airline issue that production could not control, the production teams held up the three other teams when they arrived in Australia to make up for the time lost in resolving the card issue, and thus appearing to have all teams equally bunched out of the airport. However, Jon and Al still arrived last in the leg and were eliminated.

Season 5 featured the first female team (Linda & Karen) to make it to the Final Four.

Marshall and Lance (Season 5) were the first team in Amazing Race history to quit. Marshall was suffering from a knee injury in the Roadblock in Luxor, Egypt, on Leg 6 and the team arrived at the task site after all others had left. They decided to give up. They also became the first team to be physically unable to reach the Pit Stop.

In Leg 8 of Season 7, Fast Forward returned to the concept of a Fast Forward from Season 5 - an Indian good-luck ritual, where both team members must shave their heads - but this time it was completed by Uchenna and Joyce; Brandon and Nicole in Season 5 balked at the task once they discovered it.

A record seven Fast Forwards were handed out in Season 4 (including the first five legs of the race), only one of which was sought by more than one team.

In Season 6, the Race saw its first marriage proposal. At the Pit Stop of the penultimate leg, Aaron proposed to Hayden and she accepted. They got married 3 years later in 2007 and are happily married with children.

Since the rule change in Season 5, which stipulates that last-placed teams in non-elimination legs were forced to surrender all collected money, would not be given any on the subsequent leg, and needed to start the next leg with zero dollars to their name, Uchenna & Joyce (Season 7) were the first to win the race after surrendering all money.

Rob & Kimberly (Season 10) hold the record for most consecutive finishes in the same position. They placed 3rd six times in a row.

Doctors and best friends Nat and Kat made Amazing Race history in Season 17 by becoming the first all-female team to win the race. Nat is also the first Type I diabetic to win the race.

Chip and Brandon (Season 5) hold the record for most Roadblocks performed by a single person - 10. The record is unlikely to be broken because of a rule limiting the number of Roadblocks a person may perform beginning in Season 6.

In response to criticisms regarding team members (particularly females on co-ed teams) who didn't perform any of the Roadblock tasks, the producers changed the Roadblock rules starting in Season 6. Now, no one team member may perform more than six Roadblocks. Teams would have to choose carefully who would do the Roadblock.

This was modified again in Season 9 when the limit was increased to a maximum of seven. It changed again in season 18 as team members could not complete more than five Roadblocks prior to the final leg. The final changes occurred in Season 24 as the rules such that up through leg 10 individual racers were limited to performing a maximum of 6 Roadblocks, but the final 3 Roadblocks on legs 11 and 12 were not subject to the limit.

Although they are the third team overall not to finish a leg in first place immediately following the Fast Forward, the NFL Wives (Monica and Sheree - Season 4) are the first team to use it and finish neither first nor last as they finished in fourth during leg 1.

Derek & Drew (Season 3) become the first team in history to arrive in 11th place and not be eliminated due to the fact that this was the first season with 12 teams.

Dan and Jordan Pious' victory in TAR16 was unprecedented for three reasons: they were the first winning team to consist of either two male siblings (previous winning sibling teams were mixed-gender), one gay and one straight member, and two Jewish members (while there had been previous gay, straight, and Jewish winners at different times, their partners were either the same sexual orientation or different religion from them).

In Leg 8 (Season 6), Freddy & Kendra became the first team to be Yielded and still finish the leg ahead of the team that Yielded them (Adam & Rebecca - due to Adam going the wrong direction to perform a Roadblock). This has since been accomplished by Joseph & Monica of Season 9 (beating BJ & Tyler - due to a 3-way footrace), and again by Lyn & Karlyn of Season 10 (beating Dustin & Kandice - due to driving past the Detour).

Season 7's Leg 3 featured a difficult Roadblock in which players had to eat four pounds of meat and organs. An unprecedented four players actually quit the food eating task: Rob, Meredith, Deana, and Patrick. Although it was not shown on television, Patrick initially quit on the Roadblock but shortly after changed his mind and successfully completed it. Debbie was the only female to complete the meat eating Roadblock.

On the Season 9 finale of online web-series "The Finish Line", Eric announced that he was dating fellow racer Danielle and had planned to move to New York to be closer to her. The two were later selected to race in The Amazing Race All-Stars (Season 11), and became the first returnee people to race together that had not previously been on the same team.

Charla & Mirna and Danielle are the only All-Stars who did not have a first place finish on any leg in their first seasons.

In The Amazing Race: All-Stars, Charla & Mirna came in first on Leg 6 in Tanzania. Ironically, this was the same country that they were eliminated in when racing in Season 5.

While the TAR2 storyline had Tara and Wil as an estranged married couple looking to see if they could reunite, it was revealed after the game that they had actually gotten an official divorce before the game. Wil, however, told interviewers that both his interest in patching things up with Tara and his annoyance at her race-long romance with Alex Boylan were genuine.

At six (aired), Tian (Season 4) holds the record for most Roadblock tasks performed by a contestant whose teammate did not perform any.

Season 5 featured the first African-American and the oldest couple to win the Race (Chip & Kim), as well as the first team to win without using a Fast Forward.

Season 10 is the first time in the history of the Race that an all-female team, Lyn & Karlyn, made it into the final three. It is also the first time in the history of the Race that the final three was composed of all three possible gender combinations - two men (Tyler & James), a man and a woman (Rob & Kimberly), and two women (Lyn & Karlyn). It also marked the first time wherein the final three never came in last in a non-elimination leg.

Lyn & Karlyn were the first all female team to reach the Final Three and the first team to make it to the final three without finishing first place in any leg.

Joe and Bill were the first team in the history of the race to finish first at a Pit Stop without the use of the Fast Forward in Leg 4, El Jem Tunisia.

Although the race is planned so that the final three teams will all reach the finish line, in season 1, Joe and Bill were so far behind that they could not catch up and did not finish the race.

Season 2: In Leg 3, Leg 4, and Leg 7 Peggy & Claire, Shola & Doyin, and Mary & Peach did not perform the final tasks and instead proceeded directly to the Pit Stop. They were eliminated in the order mentioned.

Season 3 featured the oldest couple (Teri and Ian) to make it into the final three.

Dennis & Andrew (Season 3) became the first team to use the Fast Forward and be eliminated. But they were not the first team to use it and be the last team to arrive. Joe & Bill used that and were last to arrive in Season 1. But they were not eliminated due to Nancy & Emily's 24-hour penalty for skipping the detour.

In Leg 7 (Season 3), Andre & Damon, already in last, upon arrival at the Detour, received a clue instructing them to go directly to the Pit Stop. At the Pit Stop, they returned the dollar they received at the start of the leg to Phil and said that they did not need it.

Flo and Zach are the first coed team to win the Amazing Race.

In Leg 7, they took the Fast Forward, which allowed them to skip all the tasks in Austria, and they stayed in Germany for the entire leg. This makes them the first, and to date, only winners of the race to entirely skip a country that was visited.

On Leg 12, they switched their Detour task twice in Vietnam. This was the first time a team has switched Detours twice in the race.

Steve and Josh (Season 4), placing ninth are the lowest placing team to ever win a leg twice.

In Leg 11 of Season 6, Hayden & Aaron arrived third, in front of Adam and Rebecca, but were eliminated because they had taken a four hour time penalty for not completing the roadblock. Both Rebecca and Hayden almost had to quit the roadblock because the last gondola down the mountain was about to leave. The task was to search approximately 3,000 locks and find the one that opened with a key they were given. At the last moment, as Hayden & Aaron were about to quit, Rebecca opened her lock.

Meredith and Gretchen (Season 7) were officially the oldest couple in the history of The Amazing Race to make it to the top four teams. If they had made the top three, they would have beaten Teri and Ian from Season 3 as the oldest couple to make the final.

In Season 10, a Fast Forward was offered in conjunction with the Intersection in Leg 8. Mary reported in a post-race interview on "The Finish Line" that a team could use a Fast Forward for a second time (in this case with a team that had not used a Fast Forward earlier in the race). In previous seasons, teams were allowed to use only one Fast Forward during the entire race. This would come into effect a season later in "All-Stars" when Danny & Oswald completed two Fast Forwards.

Uchenna & Joyce (Season 7) are the only previous season winners to compete on All-Stars (Season 11).