First Team Eliminated from 'Amazing Race' 2026 Reveal What You Didn't See on TV, Which Led to Their Downfall | Just Jared

The first team to be eliminated from The Amazing Race season 39 is opening up about their early dismissal and how something not shown on TV led to their downfall.

Zach Johnson, 30, and Nate Johnson, 27, who are brothers from Dallas, Texas, were the first team to be eliminated this season.

The brothers got to the pit stop just minutes after the team before them and they likely would have been safe if they didn’t face one major mistake.

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In an interview with Us Weekly, the brothers revealed that a water taxi dropped them off at the wrong location, which added a mile and a half of travel time to their journey.

Zach and Nate missed an Aquabus by seconds and had to get on the next available boat, which then went to the wrong stop.

“When we did get on our water taxi, our water taxi driver didn’t take us to the right spot, so we got dropped off about another mile and a half away from the clue box,” Nate said. “So during that time, Zach and I … it just shows like we were hustling to get to where we were.”

Zach added, “We didn’t see where people got dropped off after the water taxi. We also never saw the flag detour because we just decided to do canoes and all the stuff that happened in between us running from where we got dropped off to them we didn’t see obviously.”

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Nate talked about what it was like to “overcome” the mistake.

“It’s like whether or not it would have helped us either way. We just conquered that again. We ran, got proper directions, and followed where we needed to go. You know, it wasn’t like ‘Oh no, we’re lost. How do we get there?’ It was like no, we did it,” he said.

The team that came in 12th out of 13 for leg one arrived at the pit stop just minutes before them.

Check out details on how to watch this season.

Posted To:CBS Television The Amazing Race