Stefan Fridriksson

Great series. I appreciated that the series was meant to help those who are white and were perhaps poor differentiate between their struggles, and the additional burden borne by people of colour to make it in America.

Great Series. Enjoyed the show right up until the end. And then.........a ridiculous BS decisions was made by the organizers. I have spent most of my adult life in elite competitive racing in various sports, paddling, long distance running etc. I have never seen a team who had eliminated themselves from competition, be given a mulligan so they could finish the race. In the final leg, they were given a choice of which boat they should take at the final check in. They chose the fastest of the outriggers available, an "Unlimited", leaving the other crews clunky standard OC's. Any paddler knows these are not the most stable boat but are a lot faster than the other heavier OCs. As a result, the Kiwis hulied (flipped the boat) as soon as they encountered open ocean. When it was uprighted, they couldn't bale that kind of boat. That is one of the drawbacks of that style of OC. But, they chose to take that boat. Whose fault was that but their own? In no other outrigger race would a team that flipped their boat, couldn't bale it and then called mayday, be allowed to board the safety boat, be brought to and island, and then be given another boat and be allowed to carry on in the race. Complete and utter nonsense! In the hundreds of outrigger, dragon boat, canoe races I have participated in, if your boat hulies (flips), you right the boat and carry on in the race or you are DQ'd. if you can't, certainly no one brings you a new boat. If you can't bale the boat, get back in and paddle you are through. Even more ridiculous, they were brought to an island by the safety boat, given an hour or more of rest (ridiculous) and then as fast as possible someone dispatched a new boat (nonsense) so they could carry on. At least the Kiwis had the decency to look shame faced when they were given the medal. One of the Kiwis even had the guts to say they should have been DQ'd. Why the organizers chose to give them the gold is beyond comprehension. From the outset, I know the show had invested a lot of time and money following the Kiwi team. The team had an embedded cameraman, they interviewed the Kiwi's many times during the event, and they had filmed back stories on each of their team members at their homes prior to filming in New Zealand. The two runner up teams had no such coverage. But to allow the Kiwis to carry on when they were clearly DQ'd was nothing but contrived BS. Simply a very disappointing finish to an otherwise pretty good show.