What’s covered in mud, has Big Red Balls and a Crash Mountain? It can only be TV’s craziest game show, Total Wipeout, which this season featured a very special contestant – Coleg Gwent’s very own lecturer Kelly Young.
Kelly, who teaches Business Studies at Pontypool Campus, featured in the latest series as she joined 160 contestants battling it out around the legendary obstacle course hosted by Richard Hammond and Amanda Byram.
Entering through her local swimming club, Blaenavon Barracudas, Kelly auditioned for the programme in Cardiff where she was given 60 seconds to convince producers she would be an ideal candidate, and put through her paces over an obstacle course.
After successfully making it through to the filming of the show, Kelly was flown to Argentina at the end of October to compete against 29 fellow contestants. “It was brilliant!” says Kelly. “I’m a big fan of the show so when the opportunity came up for me to take part I decided to go for it. Filming in Argentina was great – I met a real mix of people on the programme from models to rocket scientists. I enjoyed every minute, and being interviewed by Amanda Byram was a definite highlight!”
Achieving a time of four minutes and 10 seconds, Kelly was eventually beaten to the final by fellow contestants, but remains delighted with the whole experience. She said: “It very hard but such a fun thing to do. I just remember the adrenaline pumping and all of my tactics went out of the window. The big red balls were brilliant. I got to the second ball but was covered in mud so then fell in sideways.
“I am always encouraging students to do more adventurous things so I thought it was about time I took my own advice!”
