Overcoming obstacles

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This article was published 25/08/2023 (1113 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Obstacles are nothing new for Ben Chutta and Anwar Ahmed. By tapping into a lifetime of overcoming adversity, the Winnipeggers are now among the final four teams vying for the grand prize on the ninth season of The Amazing Race Canada.

“We’ve been doing the Amazing Race our entire lives,” Chutta, 32, says. “We’re always working to keep up with and do better than the people around us.”

The friends met in Winnipeg as teenagers and bonded in university over a shared love of basketball and similar upbringings.

Both are the children of refugees. Chutta’s parents left Ethiopia on foot due to civil unrest, while Ahmed’s parents fled war-torn Somalia before immigrating to Canada. Those sacrifices have served as motivation throughout their lives — including during challenges on a jet-setting reality TV show.

“We were dealt a different set of cards than most people. Drive is really the only way to get through it,” Ahmed, 32, says.

While both are fans of The Amazing Race franchise, it took some convincing to get Ahmed on board to compete. Chutta had applied once before but never made it past the auditions. The pair were in the midst of a backpacking trip through Indonesia and Australia when he pitched the idea again.

“Our relationship has been him pulling me into different countries, pulling me into different cultures and trying to get me to explore more,” Ahmed says. “The show was just a perfect example of him pulling me into another world adventure.”

After travelling the world and living together 24/7 for two months in a cramped van, Chutta was confident their interpersonal dynamic would translate to strong teamwork.

“(Anwar) has a super strong competitive side to him, he’s a very disciplined person. I felt that, as a partner, he would complement places where I’m not that skilled. I’m more all over the place and a little bit wild and he brings the order and the cohesion,” Chutta says.

The timing also made sense. Recent career changes meant they had few responsibilities back home and ample free time to participate in a month-long cross-country competition.

“It was kind of like, if not now, then when?” says Ahmed, adding that representation and gratitude were important factors in his decision to participate.

“We hope that people who come from where we came from can look up to us and say, ‘That’s cool, that’s inspiring…’ and to tip our hats to our parents for everything they gave us.”

The friends filmed an audition tape against the backdrop of the Australian outback and started preparing as soon as they found out they’d been selected. Re-watching past seasons while quizzing each other on strategies was a major part of the work.

“We had about six weeks to get ready. We started buying puzzles and we started going to the gym and preparing for specific race-related challenges,” Chutta says.

The ninth season of Amazing Race Canada kicked off in Winnipeg at the foot of the Provencher Bridge, but the hometown advantage didn’t last long. Teams followed the first clue to the Winnipeg Art Gallery and completed an Inuit art-related challenge before hopping a plane to Calgary.

While running around with an entourage of cameras took some getting used to, one of the biggest challenges was learning how to navigate the world after their smartphones and wallets were confiscated by the production crew — an experience Chutta and Ahmed thoroughly enjoyed.

“My biggest takeaway was just how distracted the world is,” Ahmed says of noticing how many passersby were glued to their phones during travel days.

“I think I was already one of those people who would lean towards a digital and now I’m hyper aware of how much time it’s consuming.”

Filming took place this past spring and the local competitors have been watching the weekly episodes faithfully with friends and family. Seeing how the competition unfolded has been illuminating.

“We only had the POV of our race and our camera crew … and some of the challenges, we only got to choose one out of the two so we don’t even know what the other one looked like,” Ahmed says.

“I’m itching to watch to see what that detour looked like or to confirm or deny whether we chose the right one.”

Ahmed and Chutta are business school graduates who previously worked in sales and talent acquisition, respectively. While competing didn’t provide any epiphanies about where their careers may lead next, they feel more ready than ever to meet whatever challenges life throws at them.

“The thing it did was give us more tools for our toolbox,” Chutta says. “Everything was hyper-inflated, the stress level, the competition level and when you come out of that you just become a stronger person.”

New episodes of The Amazing Race Canada air every Tuesday at 8 p.m. on CTV.

eva.wasney@winnipegfreepress.com

Twitter: @evawasney