'The Amazing Race Canada' team from Nova Scotia reflects on post-COVID elimination

The pandemic has made its mark on The Amazing Race Canada (Tuesdays at 9:00 p.m. ET on CTV, CTV.ca and the CTV app), after three teams had to miss several legs of the race after having COVID-19, which also led to uncle-nephew team Dennis Ashe and Durrell Borden from Nova Scotia being eliminated.

In the latest episode of the show, the three teams that had to leave the competition due to COVID-19 returned, but they had to work to stay in the race. Each team had to find one of two golden passes, with the remaining team being eliminated.

“I think rollercoaster sums it up, it was a trip to say the least,” Borden told Yahoo Canada. “Those days were like, ‘OK cool, I think we're going to get back on, I think they'll open up an opportunity,’ and on other days you're like, ‘I don't think there is an opportunity, this might be it.’”

“So definitely a rollercoaster of emotions and just taking the time, and trying to be present in the moment you're in, because [there was] literally nothing anybody could necessarily do about the circumstances.”

“Everything is out of your control,” Ashe added. “You have no power over anything when…you're back in and then you're blindsided... It's a tough way to go for sure, a tough pill to swallow.”

Thinking back to the time when they had their final moment to compete for a spot, the pair weren’t even sure if that would truly be their last moment to try to stay in the race.

“At that time, I was really just feeling like,...we're going to find this pass and then we're going to get through this, and if we don't find it, are we going to be eliminated? Is this going to be an elimination lag?” Borden said.

“Your anxiety’s up and you're like, oh wow, we have to actually do something to get back on after experiencing COVID and missing out on two legs, which would have been an amazing opportunity and experience that we missed,” Ashe added. “It sucks that we missed them and then got COVID, and I'm like, ‘Oh, wow…when is it going to stop?’”

“My emotions were everywhere, I was kind of frustrated and disappointed from the beginning, before we even started this challenge, that we even had to do it, but you’ve kind of got to go through the motions.”

Despite the uncommon circumstances of their elimination, the uncle-nephew team still say they’ve had an incredibly positive experience, and would do it again.

“It was an incredible experience that we shared as an uncle-nephew and as family, and to meet so many incredible people that we now call friends via the entire experience,” Durrell Borden said.

Looking at who is left in the competition, the pair were initially “sizing up” father-son team Cedric Newman and Tychon Carter-Newman, but ultimately, this race will always surprise you.

“We sized up Cedric and Tychon, and then ended up being great friends with them too, so I've ditched the expectations, ditch the preconceived notions and just have fun, be present, and do the best you can,” Borden said.

“I learned to not judge a book by it's cover, no matter how short, how tall how anything you are, I'm not going to take you for granted because the next thing you know, you blow by me,” Dennis Ashe added.