Each episode of The Challenge: USA has featured an elimination event to close out the episode, with one team getting sent home for the season, ending their chances at winning big prize money and a spot in a world tournament.
One team automatically goes into the elimination after finishing last amongst all teams in the daily challenge. However, their opponents get selected by the team that won the daily challenge.
That often brings some difficult decisions, with castmates rubbing others the wrong way with their choices for who to send in.
In Episode 6, the team selected for elimination had a chance to save themselves from competing at The Arena, thanks to a pair of castmates willing to volunteer to take their places.
However, the original team ultimately participated in the elimination despite their castmates’ generous offer, and it may have partly been due to one individual’s injury.
This report will contain spoilers through Episode 6 of The Challenge: USA.
Injury played big part in Episode 6 elimination
In The Challenge: USA, Episode 6, competitors went through a challenging obstacle course hanging above the water and had to memorize and count up symbols before retrieving keys to swim to shore and solve math equations.
Not all competitors were willing to participate, as there was a rope swing from a hanging container to a platform that Big Brother star Enzo Palumbo wouldn’t do. That was an automatic DQ for him and teammate Justine Ndiba, sending them straight to the elimination.
Other Challengers had issues during the event, including the team of Tyson Apostol and Kyra Green. Kyra admitted she got sick ahead of the daily event, causing her to struggle physically. At one point, she fell into the water and didn’t feel she had the strength to climb back up to the container, resulting in a DQ.
However, Kyra’s Love Island ally Shannon St. Clair pulled a hamstring when she fell into a cargo net near a hanging container and announced her injury in front of everyone.
While she tried to look like she was fine the next day, ultimately, the winning team, David Alexander and Desi Williams, chose to send Shannon and her teammate Derek Xiao into the elimination. They mentioned Shannon’s injury as a reason to send them down to compete at The Arena.
Her injury also affected her team’s chances of winning the elimination event, as seen in the footage below.
Eliminated Challengers say castmates offered to replace them at The Arena
While the matchup shown in Episode 6 featured Shannon and Derek versus Enzo and Justine, that almost wasn’t the case. According to comments from the eliminated Challengers, they had another team willing to take their place.
“One thing they didn’t show, and I actually don’t think anyone talked about yet, is when me and Shannon got asked down into elimination by Desi and David, Cash [Proudfoot] and Kyland [Young] actually stepped forward and volunteered to go in for us. They did not show that in the episode, which I was kinda surprised about,” Derek revealed.
He went on to say that Cashay wanted to step in for Shannon due to her best friend having an injury and that Kyland said Derek was also his “best friend,” so he’d volunteer. Shannon called it a “heroic” moment that the aired episode didn’t include.
Despite their castmates’ offer, Derek and Shannon refused to let their friends take their place. They went through with the Spelling Eeb elimination involving spelling a few words backward and then trying to transfer and stack numerous tires before their opponents.
While it looked like they were close to winning, their stacking strategy hurt them, as a pile of tires fell over, costing them time. That allowed Enzo and Justine to get ahead and ultimately win the event.
Hindsight is everything, and when asked if they wished they’d taken up Cash and Kyland on their volunteer offer, Derek and Shannon said they wouldn’t feel very good if they did and then their castmates lost.
“It was my injury and my fault. If I sent Cash home because of something that I hurt during the daily, like I wouldn’t have stayed,” Shannon said.
The Challenge: USA airs Wednesdays at 8/7c on CBS.