Never underestimate the heart of a champion.
That was the lesson learned on the latest episode ofSurvivor: Winners at War.
What seemed like a simple task was anything but.
Robert Voets/CBS
But if history has proven anything, it is that you cant keep Ethan Zohn down.
He smashed the competition inSurvivor: Africaand then smashed cancer not once buttwice.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: You had 20 logs you had to bring down in that brutal Fire Token task.
When did you start to feel faint in the process?
ETHAN ZOHN: I think it was around 10 or 12.
First of all, it’s me and three women, and Natalie’s a work horse.
As are Amber and Danni.
At first, I really thought I had this.
This is no problem.
You don’t understand going up this fricking side of the mountain.
There was, I don’t know, 80 stairs that were just death to go up and down.
I just have hamstrings, I have no ass.
And so I don’t know what it was.
And for some reason, it just did not sit well with me, this challenge.
And I got to a point where my depth perception got really weird.
You go up and over and down through crevices, up the stairs.
What’s going on here?"
I wanted to keep going.
They sat me down and when I sat down, that’s when I think I passed out.
So did they give you fluids?
They definitely gave me a sugar tab.
They gave me water.
They gave me salt tablets and a sugar, glucose tablet.
It’s really weird how the show works.
I didn’t want to get the help unless everyone else was getting the help.
It’s not fair, and give them fresh water out of a bottle."
So for some reason, that’s where my brain went.
Meanwhile, I should be like, “F— that.
I’ll take everything I can get trying to get ahead in the game!”
So how long did you have to rest up before continuing?
Yeah, I want to feel like it was half an hour, 45 minutes maybe.
And how afraid were you that they were maybe going to pull you from the game?
How much was that going through your mind?
Oh my God, I was crying and was like, “Do not pull me from the game!
I’ll be okay.
Just give me a minute.
I’m going to be okay.”
I knew my body.
I probably just should have rested.
You’re judging your time based on the sun, and I didn’t know what time we started.
You got to get done by sundown.
That was the rule, I think.
They said 20 logs by sundown and I’m like, “F—.”
But you get your ego involved and you want to be first and you go up too fast.
Danni was the smartest one.
Everyone else started walking real fast.
She was really slow and methodic.
She’s like, “We got all day for this.
Don’t worry.”
I was like, “All right.”
I tried to beat her, but it didn’t work.
Yeah, that would have been the worst.
This is already bad that I’m passing out on national television.
It looks like CBS is trying to kill the cancer guy here!
These challenges are legit, seriously.
I don’t know if I’ve seen an endurance challenge to this magnitude ever in history ofSurvivor.
I’ve watched every episode.
So what did it mean for you to then complete that task?
You go down, you have medical, you get back up.
We see you, not even walking up the stairs, but literallycrawlingup the stairs.
What did it mean for you to finally get through that?
So I finish the challenge and I had one more log to go.
Everyone else was done already.
We’re all doing this for one Fire Token.
We didn’t really know what the Fire Tokens are used for at the time.
No one wants to take an extra trip up that f—ing hill.
I’ll never forget that moment.
Carrying me up the hill was just epic, I think.
How did you feel later?
After you finished the task, that night, the next morning how were you feeling, physically?
I was a little embarrassed, but on the flip side, I was happy that they were there.
I don’t think if they were there, I would have finished, to be honest.
I probably would have just chucked it in.
It was so hard, and my body was not responding well to that challenge.
But after, we all hung out in the water a little bit.
We were just dead.
Don’t forget, we have no food and the Edge has no food.
There’s no food on the Edge really.
Couple fish here and there.
We got to go up to the top of the hill to get our rice, first of all.
We did that in the morning already.
It’s like the marathons all your emotion pours out.
And for moreSurvivorscoop, follow Dalton on Twitter@DaltonRoss.
