The Forget twins are eliminated from The Amazing Race Canada

Twin brothers Pierre and Michel Forget from North Shore Terrebonne have become the sixth team eliminated on CTV’s  The Amazing Race Canada and they did not part generating any warm feelings with the only other Montreal team,  the newly engaged couple of  Alain Chanoine and Audrey Tousignant-Maurice.

The August 26 episode saw the teams travel to Paris, France. Starting this eighth  leg in second place, the twins made a tenuous pact at the Bayeux Train Station with Alain and Audrey as fellow Quebecers to not U-Turn (forcing one team to complete both ends of a detour) each other.

From the Pit Start in the medieval town of Bayeux in Normandy, teams made their way by train to Paris. Once there they found their first clue at the iconic monument Arc de Triomphe, which sent them to the little-known Place du Canada, where they chose one of the two Detours, either dressmaking or finding and serving three dishes for patrons waiting in a café in the Marais District. Teams then went to Centre Pompidou and found the Double U-Turn board, where the twins broke their promise and sent Audrey and Alain back to complete the café challenge.

 “I believe their strategy was to kick us out of the race,”  Pierre told me. “Their alliances had collapsed so they tried to save their backs by teaming up with us. We felt the only way to deal with liars and hypocrites is to lie to them as well.  Unfortunately it did not work out the way we planned.”

It was at the Roadblock where the playing field levelled, however, as each team struggled recreating artist Bastek’s creation using Mentos candies. In the end it was Pierre and Michel who would arrive last at the Pit Stop, located on the bank of the Seine, near the breath-taking Notre Dame Cathedral. “This is not  The Amazing Help Canada,” said Michel. “Yet the other teams were helping each other. The challenge looked easy, but it was not.”

 

Pierre and Michel get the bad news.

With their sixth overall first-place win, Canadian Olympic women’s hockey team players Meaghan and Natalie earned a trip on Air Canada’s new Premium rouge service to any of their European destinations, and $3,000 on their Scotiabank Gold American Express card.

Were Audrey and Alain steamed with the twins? They had other things on their mind as Alain dropped to his knees and proposed marriage. “I wish them a happy life together,” said Pierre. “We do not expect to be invited to the wedding. How we acted does not  make us bad people. We reacted to a threat. They were one of the strongest teams.”

The episode will encore  on CTV and CTV GO (Saturday, Aug. 30 at 8 p.m. ET/PT and Sunday, Aug. 31 at 5 p.m. ET/PT – and is also now available on demand at CTV GO. All-new episodes air Tuesdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV and CTV GO.

The race next comes home to Canada as teams fly to Montreal (Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV and CTV GO) where the competition kicks into high gear. A cheesy Detour causes confusion and queasiness, and teams are challenged to bare it all.

I talk to the two Montreal-area teams from The Amazing Race Canada 2

Following seven episodes of The Amazing Race Canada on CTV, one thing is abundantly clear. The two teams from the Montreal area do not like each other. When I interviewed Alain Chanoine and Audrey Tousignant-Maurice, a couple who live on the South Shore and twin brothers  Pierre and Michel Forget, I could tell immediately that the rivalry being shown on television is not just for the cameras.

Audrey was somewhat diplomatic: “It is not that we do not like them. We just play the game differently.”

Alain and Audrey read a clue in a scene from the next episode in Paris.

As for Alain, he notes: “Just wait until you see our interaction in the next episode!”

Pierre and Michel tell the story this way. “The first when we met and knew we were all from Montreal we asked if we could work together,” remarked Michel. “Well they never answered us. After all of their alliances collapsed they came back and said ‘do you remember your question when we first met? I said to Audrey, ‘but you never answered us.’ This is all part of the game. They will never be invited to our house for dinner.”

Pierre and Michel.

Following last week’s  second non-elimination leg of the season in Normandy, all six teams will get to see more of France and race to Paris in next week’s episode airing Tuesday, Aug. 26 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on CTV and CTV GO. As revealed at the end of the last broadcast, Ryan and Rob were saved from elimination at the Pit Stop on the sands of Juno Beach, after countless wrong turns in the rolling countryside and small towns of Normandy.  On Juno Beach, Olympic hockey players Natalie and Meaghan reclaimed their spot atop the podium, winning their fifth leg after starting in fifth place at the Pit Start in Winnipeg.

Previews for the Paris episode show us that tempers will begin to really boil. “This is definitely my favorite episode,” is all Audrey will say, naturally sworn to secrecy.

Alain is an actor and stuntman while Audrey is a real estate broker for ReMax Action. The couple own a triplex in Boucherville. Audrey was raised in LaSalle and sells properties all over the island of Montreal. They have been together for two years. Since the show debuted, they have been gathering on Tuesday nights with friends and family at the Rack'N'Roll Billard Bar (http://www.racknroll.com) on the South Shore to watch the episodes live. Last week  Brett Burstein and Holly Agostino, the Montreal Children’s Hospital physicians who were in last year’s show, were special guests.

The Forget brothers were delivered as a team 42 years ago and have since shared a passion for competition, sport, and life in general. Before becoming dedicated to their current roles with the family meatpacking plant in North Shore Terrebonne, the twins competed in high-level freestyle skiing. Michel gave up his dream of being a competitive skier so that Pierre could compete full time, as their family could not afford for both boys to be heavily involved in the sport. Pierre went on to become a member of the Canadian Freestyle Ski Association team and won the International Ski Federation (FIS) Moguls World Cup title in 1994.
  

Having just been to Paris myself, I am really looking forward to the next episode. For the competitors though, this experience was hardly a holiday. “In terms of any place we go, it is like seeing a country in fast forward,” says Alain. “We are running with backpacks,  jumping over cars. ‘Oh there is the Eiffel Tower,’ I will say to myself.

Pierre and Michel had a really interesting experience in Paris, one which is unlikely to be seen on Tuesday.  Since the show was filmed in May, contestants were not allowed to tell anyone – not even family members – where they were and what they were doing. “I asked one of the producers, what would happen if we saw someone we knew?” Pierre said. “He commented that would never happen. Well, while on a small street in Paris Michel and I heard someone call out our names. Sure enough it was someone we knew. We asked him to please not broadcast this on social media or tell anyone and took a selfie with him. He was good to his word.”

Pierre also wanted to point out how he and his brother are not necessarily portrayed fairly in the episode in Macau where mother and son  Nicole and Cormac accused them of trying to steal their cab. “I want to make it clear,” said Pierre. “We were the first in line. We decided to be polite and classy and just go to the end of the line.”

One last thing. I asked the two teams whether they are getting recognized on the streets because of the national TV coverage. It seems they are flying very much under the radar. “Not much,” said Alain

Added Michel: “Well we live in a francophone area, so not too many people have stopped us either.”