An ankle injury played a major role in Jeff “Pops” Bailey and Jeff Bailey’s close-call elimination from The Amazing Race.
“We knew it was gonna be a footrace, and at that time, my ankle was swollen pretty tough,” Pops, 65, exclusively told Us Weekly on Thursday, April 10. “So you probably can tell where I was running, I was kind of hopping a little bit.”
Long before going on the competition series, Pops sustained the injury when Jeff, now 36, was a baby. The lumberjack fell out of a tree and broke both his legs. While Pops has recovered from the ailment, his injury still has a tendency to act up.
According to the father-son duo, Pops’ ankle became an issue during the Hong Kong leg of the race. As they got further along in the competition, Jeff would help tend to his dad’s ankle during their rest periods.
“Every time we were at the pit stop, every hotel, I would literally every hour go down the hallway, get some more ice for him,” Jeff told Us. “He’d ice his ankle as much as we could, and he’d feel good at the beginning of each next leg, but it’d go back bad.”
As the team entered the leg in Dubai, Pops’ ankle had swollen up and was “about the size of a cantaloupe.” One thing Pops and Jeff wanted to avoid at this time was a footrace — which they ended up being unable to avoid. Pops and Jeff missed an earlier train headed to the pit stop by a mere few seconds.
“We knew because of his ankle we didn’t wanna get in a footrace. We knew that that could be bad for us,” Jeff told Us. “We were moving and talking at the same time. If you notice, we didn’t stop and say, ‘Hey, is this the right train?’ We were still moving towards the train.”
Jeff, for his part, attempted to halt the train himself to “buy some time.”
“I reached my arm in it and it [started] to close,” he recalled. “My biggest regret was not reaching both hands in there and just snatching that thing. That’s the only thing that haunted me.”
Pops and Jeff found themselves vying for last place alongside brothers Nick and Mike Fiorito — and the foursome got into an intense footrace.
“You’re on the same exact train as these guys — and that train ride was not short. So it’s a lot of time of us up there first starting off frustrated because we didn’t get on the first train,” Jeff said. “Pops calming me down and we’re talking and putting our heads back in the game. You could see and hear Nick and Mike, one of them took a shot of an inhaler.”
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When the two teams did arrive at their destination, there was no running allowed inside the train station, which led to a “comical” speed-walking race.
“We knew once we get out of the train station, you can run. So we’re just mentally preparing ourselves, like, ‘Hey, give it everything we got. Leave it all here in Dubai,’” Jeff recalled. “We’re gonna run the fastest that we can, you know, with these big backpacks on.”
Once they spotted Phil Keoghan on the mat, Jeff and Pops ditched their backpacks to make the jog easier.
“When it’s time to sprint, we’re running, and [Pops’] ankle is in bad shape,” Jeff shared. “So I kind of slow down with Pops and we take our backpacks off and we finish [the] rest of the way to the pit stop.”
Pops and Jeff made it to the mat within seconds of Nick and Mike — and were subsequently eliminated from the game. Jonathan Towns, Ana Towns, Melinda Papadeas and Erika Papadeas were also present for the elimination, which turned into an emotional moment.
“When we got to that pit stop, it was sad for us too. … Jonathan was crying. You could kind of see it on the pit stop, everybody was crying,” Jeff explained. “But seeing Jonathan cry, it meant something to us because he is not faking it.”
Since returning home to St. Louis, Pops’ ankle is back in tip-top shape — and he’s ready to come back to The Amazing Race if the opportunity presents itself.
“I went to see my doctor when I got home and he told me a few things to do. And I’m much better now,” Pops told Us. “I should have had those compression socks on during that 17-hour flight before we got there. It would’ve made a big difference.”
The Amazing Race airs on CBS Wednesdays at 9:30 p.m. ET.
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