Racers in Tough T.V.

Rob / 16.02.2003

Adventure racers are back on T.V. screens in the UK– this time in the BBC’s ‘Tough Enough for the S.A.S.’- series two. This one is set in Borneo as the 24 volunteers chosen from over 1000 applicants see if they can stick the jungle, the heat, the bugs, the presenter who asks them how they feel when they are sobbing uncontrollably, and having a camera stuck in their face when they just want to hide from the world. And of course the attentions of the ex-SAS men putting them through their paces, all experts in the warfare art of extreme shouting.

The first programme, shown on Sunday Feb. 16th, featured a high percentage of adventure racers, and there was at least one more chosen who couldn’t get the time off to go – lucky escape! Rob Priestley, Gill Watson, Eddie Winthorpe, Ian Parsons and Michael Wiesner were all in there, in camouflage, in pain and in the viewfinders of the merciless cameras.

On the face of it adventure racing should have prepared them better for the challenges ahead than the ultra runners, triathletes, mountaineers and rugby players they were up against. There was a complex and demanding navigational exercise, and according to one of the instructors, “people don’t like it when they are constantly wet, walking in water, dirty and sweaty”. Everyday adventure racing conditions maybe, but the combination of severe heat and illness took out several regular racers in the first show.

Rob Priestley featured more in the film than most ‘contestants’ but that’s usually a bad sign. All of those shown smiling and confident at interviews before they left the UK were almost guaranteed to have short, walk-on, walk-off parts. Especially those foolish enough to say, “I think I’m tough enough” – you can just imagine the editor grinning as he got that on tape. Rob never made that mistake but by the end of the episode he was packing it in.

Michael Wiesner was pulled out by the medics after one of the longest throwing up scenes even screened outside of a horror movie, and Eddie Winthorpe hardly got a mention as he exited stage left. Gill Watson was in tears too but survived and came up with one of the best lines of the show, describing the large, live ant she was eating as “tasting like Ribena”!