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Anyone expecting the 11-year marriage of Ed Kavalee and Tiffiny Hall to come under strain as they compete in the fourth round of Ten’s celebrity version of The Amazing Race will be disappointed. Even when sweating through bizarre and gruelling challenges in foreign locations with the clock ticking, the mutual respect and compassion between the Have You Been Paying Attention? panellist and the fitness expert are evident.
“Having known each other for so long, there’s a bit of a telepathy there,” says Hall, who rose to prominence as “Gladiator Angel” on Seven’s 2008 revival of Gladiators, and went on to coach on spin-offs of Ten’s Biggest Loser.
Ed Kavalee and Tiffiny Hall get moving in the Amazing Race Australia.
“We know how each other thinks and feels, and we’ll be able to have strong communication, and I think communication is really important in the race. That’ll be a strength.”
Not that the couple never argues at home. “Oh, we definitely fight!” says Hall. “But we just really wanted to support each other.”
Adds Kavalee: “I knew I was going to make mistakes. It was all going to be about Tiff’s strength to see how she was going to deal with that.”
The couple joins 12 other pairs that each include at least one high-profile member, travelling to Sri Lanka, Taiwan, the Indonesian island of Java, and, in a world first for the franchise, Uzbekistan. A $100,000 prize is on the table for their chosen charities. In Hall and Kavalee’s case, that’s Learning for Life Autism Centre, founded by Have You Been Paying Attention? host Tom Gleisner.
Fellow Amazing Race contestants Stephen and Bernard Curry.
Contestants include viral parkour sensations, TikTok pranksters, reality starlets and television personalities, including original Big Brother host Gretel Killeen and former MasterChef Australia judge Melissa Leong. From the sporting arena are former AFL player Brendan Fevola and Olympic swimmer Bronte Campbell. On the entertainment side are actor brothers Stephen and Bernard Curry, singer Rob Mills and his journalist fiancee Georgie Tunny, as well as SAS: Who Dares Wins host Ant Middleton, and comedian Steph Tisdell.
Kavalee hung out with social media stars Luke and “Sassy” Scott O’Halloran, who were routinely mobbed by fans.
“We were in a back alley in Pokhara, a satellite city of Nepal, standing on the street, and two young men ran over to Luke and Scott, and wanted to pout with them on their phones,” says Kavalee. “And I said, ‘Boys, you’re so famous. You’re in rural Nepal. I could put a billboard up with myself and [Rob] Millsy on it, and still no one would care, which is fair enough. But these people are running over to see you!’ ”
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This year, the race starts at the majestic Buddhist monument to peace Shanti Stupa, which overlooks Fewa Lake and the Himalayan Range. It was a location befitting a world in turmoil and it left Hall feeling “quite emotional”. Kavalee, meanwhile, joked that the significance of the occasion evaded him due to Fevola’s boasts about his football prowess.
Being apart for the first time from their children, seven-year-old Arnold and three-year-old Vada, was the couple’s greatest challenge. “I found it difficult because of the time difference,” says Hall. “I did have a few tears, for sure.”
They tried to treat the experience as something of a second honeymoon, given that their first was interrupted. “On the first night of our honeymoon, Tiff’s dad showed up and Tiff said, ‘What are you doing here?’” recalls Kavalee. “And he said, ‘It’s a family honeymoon!’ So we thought this might be far enough away, and my father-in-law couldn’t get there in time.”
Unsurprisingly, The Amazing Race didn’t quite tick the second-honeymoon box. “We’ve got a third honeymoon planned for Love Island!” jokes Kavalee.
The Amazing Race: Celebrity Edition premieres at 7.30pm on Monday, September 8, on Ten.
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