Ricky & César | Photo Credit: ‘The Amazing Race,’ Yuri Hasegawa / CBS

*Spoilers ahead for the 36th season of The Amazing Race, which aired its finale on May 15.*

We finally got a chance to catch our breath this week as another whirlwind season of CBS’s hit reality competition show The Amazing Race came to a close.

But we didn’t sit around for too long because there was something major to celebrate: New York City-based boyfriends Ricky Rotandi and César Aldrete were first to cross the finish line, joining the series’ growing LGBTQ+ winners circle.

What’s more, by coming in first place for seven of the race’s legs (i.e. individual episodes), they hold one of the best track record’s in the American series’ history. In fact—according to The Amazing Race fan wiki—looking at their placements each week, Ricky & César have the highest racing average ever!

Not too bad for a couple of (in their words) teddy bears, huh? Congrats Ricky & César on a well deserved win!

Pre-school teacher Ricky and chef and food stylist César, both 34, first met back in 2018 and began officially dating the following spring. In an interview with Out‘s Bernardo Sim, the couple shared that César had been a super-fan of the show and got Ricky hooked as they binge-watched seasons during lockdown in 2020.

Eventually, they decided to apply to compete on the show—and got a call about casting the very next day!

Self-dubbed “the bear couple,” Ricky & César initially saw themselves as underdogs and knew they’d have stiff competition from teams who were maybe more athletic or physically fit. But they also acknowledged the ways in which queerness could be their superpower, setting them up for success in the race:

“Being a gay man… I kind of ebb and flow through femininity and masculinity,” Ricky said to Out. “My interests are very vast. I think, when you’re a gay person, you have the ability to flow through all of these experiences without feeling judgment, and I think that really helps.”

And succeed they did! Right out the gate, the proved themselves to be formidable competitors in the inaugural leg of the race in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico—yes, the famous gay beach destination, which goes to show this season really was for the queers!

As some viewers have pointed out, with much of this season’s race taking place in Central and South America, it certainly helped that Latino César speaks fluent Spanish (though he’s not the only one). And the fact that the finish line was in Philadelphia, PA—Ricky’s hometown—also seemed to give them a bit of a leg up.

But, still, you can’t deny the way the couple utterly dominated the entire competition, succeeding in nearly ever challenge or task through their way—and doing it all with a positive attitude!

Even series host Phil Keoghan is impressed, and he’s been doing this thing since 2001:

“Have you ever met a team on The Amazing Race that are literally blessed with skills across the board?,’ Keoghan asks Parade. “They can do anything. They can sing, they can dance, they can weld, they can build. They’re smart; they do speak Spanish. They have this great chemistry between them. They’re the whole Amazing Race package, all in one.”

Related*

All season long, Ricky & César have been a joy to watch, subverting expectations, surprising even the most ardent fans of the show, and positively representing the LGBTQ+ community on television screens in homes across the country. The pair more than deserves their spot in the winner’s circle, and we’ll be anxiously awaiting their return for an all-winners season!

The morning after their win, the couple spoke to Parade and Ricky summed up the whole experience quite nicely:

“It feels very dreamlike. And we didn’t go in thinking that we were going to dominate like this. And then just to go and just perform well and have a good time and just be good competitors, it wasn’t on our radar. So it was shocking to us. And it feels really good. All of our hard work and the stress that we went through, it paid off”

Congrats again, Ricky & César! 

Related*

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