The Amazing Race Canada kicked off July 8 with Sukhi and Jinder Atwal representing Terrace.
Over 50 friends and family members of the brother-sister team showed up at Mumford's Beerhouse & Grill to cheer them on.
“We're not giving anything away, but we are putting Terrace on the map!” 32-year-old Sukhi told her guests after the premiere.
Sukhi and Jinder are both temporarily living in Toronto, but they wanted to surprise their family and host the viewing party in their hometown. Since their arrival a few days ago, they've received a lot of attention.
“It's crazy, people are pulling me over on the side of the road and they want to take selfies, and I was like 'oh my gosh!' because these are people I don't even know, they just recognize us,” Jinder said adding that Sukhi had some paparazzi moments in the gym as well.
The Terrace duo admitted they were feeling nervous about watching the show for the first time.
“It feels pretty surreal actually to be surrounded by all of our friends and family.” 26-year-old Jinder said, “I'm just nervous because I have no idea how they're going to cut the show – so we're just excited to see the show and have everyone here.”
The team had nothing to be concerned about because they've made it through to the second round.
They can't divulge much information, however the Atwals explained that their strategy in the games was to simply slow down, pay attention and to learn from their mistakes.
“But nothing can really prepare you, it's high adrenaline, high stress, high pressure, it's like the Hunger Games and these people are hungry. You can't even take a second to breathe,” Sukhi said.
The two started to train in Terrace once they found out they were accepted onto the show. They would run the Terrace Mountain and go to local bootcamps, the two also took swimming lessons from Blueback Swim Club's coach, Crystal Thomas.
“The very first time we got to the pool, Sukhi was wearing a little, tiny bikini and I looked at her and I told her, 'I don't know if you can swim in that because when you jump in things will fall off,' but, she was amazing,” Thomas said, “what she was training for was not how to swim beautifully, but she was swimming to get the job done.”
Thomas explained that Sukhi had had a near-drowning experience in her life and she was a little afraid of the water, but she was willing to do anything and after only two training sessions she was jumping off the diving board.
This is the second season of CTV's Amazing Race Canada. Twelve teams will compete in a variety of challenges all across Canada and beyond for a variety of prizes.
“Thank you [Terrace] for the love and the support, we're so proud to be from a small town and we're happy to represent and we're going to make Terrace proud!” Sukhi said. The show airs Tuesday nights at 9 p.m. on CTV and Mumford's pub will be screening the show each week.