Race Across The World stars defend scandalous moment they refused to help other team

Warning: This article contains spoilers from the very first episode of Race Across The World Series 6.

Race Across The World launched with one of its most dramatic starts of all time last night, when one team refused to help another in dire need.

Best friends Jo and Kush said they’d be relying on their Scouse charm to get through the race, but that Scouse generosity of spirit was nowhere to be found tonight when they spotted father and daughter Molly and Andrew at a ferry terminal at the Port of Bari in Italy.

Molly and Andrew needed just €10 in cash to get on a ferry, which Jo and Kush knew they had in their back pocket. They faced a moral dilemma: lend Molly and Andrew the money or get on the boat without them.

They were torn – Jo wanted to slip them the cash while Kush was looking out for number one. After some deliberation, they kept their eyes on the prize and left their rivals hanging.

Thankfully, Molly and Andrew relied on the kindness of strangers, and it paid off, managing to raise just enough money to get on the same bus as Jo and Kush, regardless.

Speaking to Metro and other media, Molly insisted she would have given them the cash had the shoe been on the other foot.

’It’s very easy to say that from the position of the other way around, but I just thought in leg one, there was no competition,’ she said. ‘If it was a different leg, seven or eight, I could understand.

’It’s very hard to say that because I wasn’t in that position, but I just felt in leg one there was no competition. Yeah, yeah. That’s really all I have to say on it. But it was a choice to make.’

Her dad, Andrew, agreed: ‘We all make choices. Was it annoying? Yeah. But as a father, if they were in the same situation, I would expect someone to help them, to give them a hand. It was just one of those things.’

With some time to reflect, how did Jo and Kush feel about the situation now? Would they have behaved differently with the wisdom of hindsight?

Jo said: ‘At first, I genuinely felt bad for them. I understand if I come across as sarcastic, but I genuinely felt for them. I could see how stressed they were; they were panicking.

‘Afterwards, I kind of regretted it, €10 is no skin off our nose, but glad we didn’t, and that was Kush’s decision because it made it more competitive, more fun, and it made it feel more like a game. I’m glad we did, but you do feel bad.’

Kush added: ‘We’re all in the same boat, that’s the thing. Looking back now, obviously, I know what Molly and Andrew are like, and we’ve got a real friendship going now. But we’d only previously met them at the start, and that was it, so we didn’t know anything about them.

‘They weren’t close friends; they were just our competition, straight up. Would you, in hindsight, give someone a chance at £10,000 in first place? Would you? Would you give someone 10 euros to give them a better chance at taking it?’

‘We all know it’s no hard feelings,’ said Jo. ‘We don’t take anything to heart.’

Moments later, both teams had to rely on each other for help. Molly and Andrew were given a spot in a taxi, which would drop them straight to the checkpoint – but it would cost them.

Stuck on the same ferry as Jo and Kush, they all clubbed together to split the taxi fare and get to the checkpoint as quickly as possible.

However, they were all unaware that siblings Katie and Harrison were already sipping on their cocktails and lounging by the pool, hours ahead of every other team, gearing up for the next leg of the race.

Race Across The World continues Wednesday at 9pm on BBC One.

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