Last night’s episode of American Gladiators was a heartbreaking one for me. Obviously, you could probably guess that my good buddy Andy didn’t make it to the finals. It was Andy versus Alex: Preacher versus Teacher. The first event was the Hit and Run – Andy did pretty good at this last time, but he got knocked off after only scoring 2 points. I wasn’t quite sure what was going to happen after that. But Alex only got 6 points, so it was 2-6. Next came the Hang Tough event. Andy managed to not get pulled down by Justice, scoring 5 points, while Alex got pretty rocked by Justice and scored no points, giving Andy a 1 point lead, 7-6. Next came Joust, in which Andy was awesome. After losing against Titan the first time, he came up huge against Wolf, and knocked him down pretty quickly. Alex didn’t last too long against Wolf, and Andy’s lead grew ten points, 17-6.
Next came the Gauntlet – not something I could even imagine doing (not that I could imagine doing most of these…). Again, Andy broke through each of the Gladiators and made it through Justice at the end, scoring 10 points. Alex almost made it through, but got held up by (and got the shoulder from) Toa; he got 6 points, and the score was then 27-12. The last event was the Wall – in which Contestants climb up a wall with Gladiators hot on their heels, trying to pull them down. I thought for sure Andy had it, but lost his footing for a split second, enough to give Alex just enough of a lead to barely beat him to the top. Both Alex and Andy made it to the top, but Alex received 10 points for getting their first, and Andy got 5: 32-22.
Finally, they arrived at the Eliminator. Andy’s 10-pt lead gave him a 5 second head-start. As usual, he was rocking the Eliminator until he got held up a bit at the hand-bike. Eventually, it was the Travelator (pictured here) that got him. I can’t remember if his foot slipped or hand lost its holding, but Alex made it up and busted through the wall for the win. I think I jumped up at that point, yelling at Alex. Andy was so close – dominated most of the night – and then just missed it! Andy emailed me this morning and said that even he hadn’t realized how close it had been until he watched it last night. So, I’m a little sad – wish that he would have made it on to the Finals.
But since he didn’t, I now will be routing for my second favorite Contestant: Monica Carlson. She’s a former Portland Trailblazer dancer, and a current soccer mom, and she’s from Milwaukie, Oregon. You can read an article about her here. She racked up a 30-point lead last night and totally rocked the other contestant in the Eliminator. So, Andy will be greatly missed on the show. And now Monica – you’ve got my support!