Jeff and Jordan still a strong team despite 'Amazing Race' loss
by: Sheri Block
Date: 3/30/2010 11:48:00 AM ET
Jeff Schroeder and Jordan Lloyd’s time on “The Amazing Race” may have ended, but their relationship is still going strong.
After meeting on “Big Brother 11,” where Jordan won the $500,000 grand prize last September, the newly dating couple set out to test their relationship on “The Amazing Race.”
And what a test it was.
With stressful situations and challenges at every corner, the couple often found themselves bickering, but Jeff, a 31-year-old salesman from Chicago, Ill., assures CTV.ca during a phone interview everything is fine.
“We’re good now. We were just in Los Angeles a few days ago so we just left each other from there. Now we’re just back at home trying to get everything back to normal.”
Jeff says he and 22-year-old Jordan, a receptionist from Charlotte, N.C., who wasn’t available to call in for the interview, are planning to continue their long-distance relationship.
While everything was new and exciting during their time on “Big Brother,” Jeff says being on the "Race" allowed them to learn a lot more about each other – both good and bad.
“‘Big Brother’ was trying in its own right, it was so long and we got along so well on the show, like everybody tends to do in a new relationship, and then once that beginning part’s over you kind of go through your ups and downs,” he says, adding that they learned he can be too competitive, while Jordan is not competitive enough.
At a Detour challenge in France that had them crawling on the ground in a WWI re-enactment, Jeff became frustrated that Jordan was not going fast enough. When the couple finally checked in at the Pit Stop, they were second last.
“(But) the very next day, we talked about it, put our heads together and said, ‘Let’s just finish strong’ and we did do that.”
Starting in last place as the next leg of the race began; the team ran into a bout of bad luck – from driving to the wrong town to having their champagne glass tower tumble down.
“Every choice we made was wrong so it definitely wasn’t in our favour that day,” says Jeff with a laugh.
They switched tasks and went on the hunt for a cluster of grapes bearing the “Race” colours in a vast vineyard.
As darkness fell and they still hadn’t found anything, Jeff says they knew that was it.
“We knew we were down so we kind of just wanted to get out of there with our heads high.”
When they finally got to the Pit Stop, host Phil Keoghan confirmed they had been eliminated but Jeff said the experience alone was priceless.
For Jordan, who had never traveled out of the U.S. before this, it was also extremely memorable, even though she has been unable to live down some of the comments she made on the show, in particular one about Joan of Arc. As the couple read the clue that required them to find a statue of the famous historical figure, Jordan asked Jeff if “he” was the one with all the animals.
“She forgot who (Joan of Arc) was and when you’re racing you kind of forget things, she just heard ‘arc’ and the first thing that popped into her head was Noah’s Ark,” explains Jeff.
With two reality shows already under their belt, does this couple have any plans to do another one?
“I would love to do ‘Survivor’ but I don’t know if it’s in the cards for me because no one wants to see the same person in three different reality shows.”
He laughs at the suggestion of becoming “the next Rob and Amber” – the couple who met on “Survivor” and went on to appear in two seasons of “The Amazing Race,” as well as various other reality shows.
“You never know,” he adds.
Either way, the hype for the celebrity couple looks like it won’t be dying down anytime soon.
“People are definitely trying to push the ‘Jeff and Jordan brand’ I’ll tell you that,” he says with a laugh.
“I don’t know how much we buy into it. It’s good – people recognize us just enough where it’s awesome but not to the point where it’s annoying or anything. I know it’s your 15 minutes (of fame) but we got to do it twice, so we got like a half hour.”
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