The Amazing Race 38, Episode 9

Season 38 Episode 9 (Wednesday, November 19th, 2025) Info: “Phil sends the team off to race through Athens, Greece. The live Double U-Turn vote returns.”

In this ninth episode of The Amazing Race Season 38 (U.S. Edition), all teams departed at different times but flew on the same airplane — therefore starting this leg of the race together. Teams left ROMANIA and arrived in Athens, GREECE and quickly proceeded to Pnyx (Pnyka) Hill near the National Observatory, Parthenon, and Acropolis. This area of ancient Greek civilization 🏺 is the birthplace of democratic voting. The Amazing Race chose this setting to conduct a Double U-Turn Vote. Each team voted two teams to slow down, requiring them to complete both Detour tasks 🚧. For coming in last place in the previous episode (↗), Adam and Joseph were penalized with one U-Turn Vote. This turned out to be a trivial disadvantage for the team since the most votes were against Eric/Tucker (4 votes), Jag/Jas (3 votes), and Kyland/Taylor (3 votes). The teams of Adam/Joseph, Chelsie/Jack, and Izzy/Paige only received one vote each. Here is a team-by-team vote tally in sequential order:

        → Adam and Joseph voted against Chelsie/Jack and Eric/Tucker.
        → Eric and Tucker voted against Jag/Jas and Kyland/Taylor.
        → Chelsie and Jack voted also against Jag/Jas and Kyland/Taylor.
        → Jag and Jas voted against Eric/Tucker and Kyland/Taylor.
        → Izzy and Paige voted against Eric/Tucker and Jag/Jas.
        → Kyland and Taylor voted against Izzy/Paige and Eric/Tucker.

While there were supposed to be two teams having to complete both Detours, Jag/Jas and Kyland/Taylor both tied in votes so a tiebreaker vote was held. Just like in the first round of voting, both teams received three votes. Therefore, Eric/Tucker, Jag/Jas, and Kyland/Taylor were required to complete both Detour challenges: “Music in the Air” 🎶 and “Olives Everywhere”. In “Music in the Air,” team members chose to carry or took turns carrying a Greek laterna piano 🎹 on her or his back to a nearby town square. They performed the musical instrument and caught everyone’s attention with various shenanigans (and begging) in hopes of earning at least 10 Euros 💶 from nearby pedestrians. Jag and Jas earned €12.20 relatively quickly, Eric and Tucker earned €18.40, Kyland and Taylor earned €11.10, and Adam and Joseph earned €13.03. For the “Olives Everywhere” Detour task, teams tasted, visually identified, and memorized 10 varieties of olives grown throughout Greece. They then quizzed their newfound olive knowledge by going to a different table somewhat close by to match 10 bowls of olives with their variety name.

Visiting another hill in Greece, teams went to a place called Hill of the Muses to roll a giant ball on it. Teams were then tasked with memorizing the 24 lowercase Greek letters, and they recited them as an elderly gentleman in ancient Greek garb pointed to each letter in random order. If I was a contestant on The Amazing Race, I would have loved to complete this task because these letters are used for designating stars in almost all the constellations in the night sky! I created the Amazing Astronomy Blog (↗) to share my passion for 🔭 stargazing and learning about the cosmos 🌌. Visitors accessing the Amazing Astronomy Blog may notice lowercase Greek letter symbols (α, β, γ, δ, ε, ζ, η, θ, etc.) within constellation maps and various posts.

Now back to recapping this episode! Jag memorized the letters in alphabetical order but did not realize the elder sage was going to point to them in random order. Nevertheless, he completed this task in first place. Meanwhile, Tucker struggled at this task despite usually finishing something in first or second place. Jag and Jas arrived at the Kotzia Square Pit Stop first and met Phil — and a lady dressed as Athena. Phil gave Jag and Jas a trip to CAMBODIA including the following destinations and activities: the world-famous Angkor Wat temple, the city of Siem Reap, ATV adventures, a Cambodian culinary tour, and Ta Prohm temple. Phil noted that Jag and Jas is the first team ever to have arrived first at the Pit Stop 🏁 after being U-Turned! Chelsie and Jack arrived at the mat in second place, followed by Adam and Joseph in third, Izzy and Paige in fourth, and Kyland and Taylor in fifth. Despite being a competent team and winning in four episodes in a row, Eric and Tucker arrived last at the Pit Stop and ended their Amazing Race journey in this episode.