For Nick and Mike Fiorito, finding a bracelet in a haystack required intervention from The Amazing Race’s doctors.
“We had to actually stop [the challenge] and get medical attention for a few minutes because we were about to have a heat stroke,” Mike, 28, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, April 17, following their elimination. “We were so determined to not stop.”
During the episode, which took place in Bulgaria, Mike and Nick, 32, chose to complete the Woodstack option for The Detour challenge. The brothers hit a snag when they were one kilogram short and had to complete another round of delivering wood. Once they finished that task, they were in a footrace with Melinda and Erika Papadeas to get to the next portion of the race.
The teams came across a U-Turn, and the mother-daughter duo decided to choose Nick and Mike, fearing they were competing for last place. (No team realized that Carson McCalley and Jack Dodge, who were typically in the front of the race, had gotten lost and were three hours behind everyone.)
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Nick and Mike had to go back and perform the other option of the Detour: The Haystack challenge. The task required teams to search for a bracelet hidden in one of three bales of hay. As the pair searched for a tiny bracelet in a literal haystack, the weather had an effect on Nick and Mike.
“When you look at us on TV and you see us kicking the hay, it almost looks like we’re just giving up and just like kicking hay. But that was literally all the energy we had left in our body,” Mike explained. “The sun was so extremely hot and it was right on top of us.”
Nick noted that the grueling effort from the Woodstack task also zapped a lot out of them.
“We had just finished carrying 400 pounds of wood and running back and forth three times. So we were really exhausted,” Nick told Us. “And then — like Mike said — the sun did not help and the hay was extremely itchy as well. So it was just like a perfect storm of unfortunate events and our energy level really went very low.”
Mike and Nick spent a total of six hours in the field in search of a bracelet. At one point, the duo contemplated taking a time penalty. However, they ultimately decided against it since it would have been an extra “eight hours” on top of what they’d already done.
“It was something outrageous, like somewhere between six and eight hours. And at that point we’re like, ‘OK, that doesn’t not make any sense to take it’ because we were already hours into this challenge,” Mike told Us. “So to add that many hours on top of it just wouldn’t make any sense. So we just said, ‘We gotta just keep fighting through here.’”
Nick and Mike never found the bracelet, and never made it to the pit stop. Host Phil Keoghan appeared at the challenge to eliminate the brothers in a “bittersweet” moment.
“[Phil] had a line basically where he said he came to take us out of our misery. And to be honest with you, he did,” Mike quipped. “We were really beaten down by that sun, by that hay just exhausted beyond measure. That was a bright point that we could stop now.”
Being on The Amazing Race was a lifelong dream for Nick and Mike. The pair applied to be on the show over the course of seven years before they got selected for season 37.
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“Watching it from your couch is one thing, but experiencing it and living it in real life is a whole nother thing. We got to see countries that we never even heard of. We never heard of Bulgaria before,” Mike shared. “So we got to see cultures and the way different people live their lives. And that was something that you can do from your couch, but it’s a whole different feeling when you experience it firsthand.”
While they didn’t walk away with the million dollar prize, the pair are looking on the bright side as they lived out their dream of competing in the race.
“At first watching last night, I’m not gonna lie, I felt like a loser. It felt like we lost, we gave it our all and it just wasn’t good enough. And there was shame attached to it and just a lot of negativity. Then I realized, maybe some of that is true, if I choose to believe it,” Nick reflected. “At the same time, you know what else is true, we’re winners because we did give it our all until the very end. We didn’t give up. We made it on the show after seven years of trying and inspired so many people with that alone.”
The Amazing Race airs on CBS Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET and is available to stream on Paramount+ the next day.
