by Gina Scarpa

The ninth leg of The Amazing Race first takes teams to the Hans Christian Anderson statue where they immediately encounter a Road Block. One team member has to memorize a poem, ride a bike to a theater, and recite it for a drama critic. Cindy gets it right on her first try and she and Ernie head to Legoland Park - which I'm totally jealous about!

Marcus has the most interesting tactic at the statue, which is to distract his wife from memorizing the poem so that, in his mind, she won't be distracted by anything else on her way to the theater. He must know something I don't because it actually worked and the married couple moves on in second place. Cathi would've been done before Amani but she's currently lost, wandering the streets of Copenhagen.

At Legoland, teams have to piece the Legos together while on a ride that spins. The pieces will form a picture of their next clue - the Hamburg Train Station. Amani and Marcus narrowly escape throwing up while Jeremy and Sandy have a hard time holding on to all of their Lego pieces.

At the Hamburg Train Station, teams catch up to one another, which is bad for Ernie and Cindy but great for Bill and Cathi, and travel over 300 miles to Brussels. Ernie and Cindy run into a potentially major issue when they lose their tickets, but chance it and never get checked on the train.

In what is possibly the greatest challenge of the season, teams compete in a bodybuilding challenge complete with skimpy bathing suits and oil to highlight their muscles (or lack thereof). I think we can all agree that we saw more of the racers than we ever cared to...

In order to move on, teams need a total score of 12 or better from three judges, but many fail right off the bat. The same cannot be said for Amani and Marcus, who get the 12 on their first try and head to the pit stop, located at Parc Elisabeth.  Andy and Tommy especially struggle with the challenge and are forced to try again and again.  

Amani and Marcus arrive at the mat first, despite getting lost on the way, and win a trip to Panama.  It must be nice to lead off the next leg in first - unfortunately, the next leg starts NOW.  To be continued...

The Amazing Race airs Sundays at 8/7c on CBS.

(Image courtesy of CBS)

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