As children, Han Nguyen ’21 and Holden Nguyen would watch “The Amazing Race” every Friday night, ever since a classmate told Holden Nguyen about the show at school.
So when they were selected to compete in the 37th season of the reality competition show, it was “a dream come true” for Holden Nguyen. It “felt like a joy to me, the opportunity to do something that I’ve always wanted to,” he said.
In the show — which aired the first episode of its new season on Wednesday night — teams of two compete in challenges spread throughout a variety of global destinations in hopes of winning a $1 million grand prize. Each week, the slowest team to reach the “Pit Stop” — a mandatory rest checkpoint at the end of each leg of competition — is eliminated from the contest.
“The whole thing was so hard,” Han Nguyen said. “Probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life, and I’ve done a lot of hard things.”
But while the grand prize was an incentive, the siblings had other reasons for wanting to compete on the show.
After Holden Nguyen went to military boarding school, the siblings rarely interacted with each other, and when Han Nguyen attended Brown, the only time the pair had together was during winter break. But even then in the time they had together, the two would butt heads.
“(Holden and I) would get into a heated argument … and then we would never reach a resolution,” Han Nguyen said. “I would fly back to the East Coast, and Holden would go back to school, and we … wouldn’t talk until the next winter break.”
Competing on “The Amazing Race” was a way for the two to rebuild their relationship and make up for lost time.
Contestants do not have access to phones, isolating them from the outside world. For Holden Nguyen, adapting to this situation was one of the most difficult aspects of the competition.
“The only other person that you really have is your teammate,” he said, adding that the show’s circumstances helped strengthen the siblings’ relationship throughout the competition.
“I’m very lucky that I got to learn how to trust my brother in this very specific public instance,” Han Nguyen added.
The sibling duo is one of the youngest teams to compete in the show’s history, and at 22 years old, Holden Nguyen was the youngest competitor in the 37th season.
Although the pair’s age benefited them in the show’s physical challenges, it was a detriment in other areas.
“The race requires you to have pristine and very refined decision-making (skills),” Han Nguyen said. “When you go through life and you get more wisdom, that decision making becomes more and more refined … unfortunately, we did not have years on our side.”
Despite the disadvantage, Han Nguyen and Holden Nguyen relied on their college experiences — as a Brown alum and a Stanford student — to guide their strategy throughout the race.
Holden Nguyen said that the duo’s “approach to education was very similar to (their) approach to the race.” Drawing upon past educational experiences “helped bridge a little bit of that youthful indiscretion of not having the life experience to have really sharp decision-making,” he explained.
During her time at Brown, Han Nguyen was a member of the women’s swim team. But for her it wasn’t her athletic ability that was important in the race, but rather the top-down problem-solving that she learned from her concentration in international relations.
“Learning from all these amazing, smart people (at Brown) that had different perspectives from me … was key in building relationships,” she said.
As a student athlete, the time management skills she gained from balancing academics and practice also helped her in the race.
“The thing that got me through four years of D1 swimming was just taking it one day at a time, one practice at a time, one stroke at a time, one class at a time,” she said. “I think that mindset also was very key in our strategy during our time on the race.”
The first episode of the season saw teams travel to Hong Kong. Subsequent episodes will take teams around the world to Bulgaria, France, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Portugal and the UAE.
Manav is a junior from Indiana, concentrating in International and Public Affairs. In his free time, he likes attempting the daily Connections puzzle or falling down Wikipedia rabbit holes.
