Ages: Both 20
From: Hertfordshire
Relationship: Best friends
Jobs: Alfie is a football referee, Owen is a trainee pilot
Social Media: Follow Alfie on Instagram @_alfiewatts_ and Owen on Instagram @owen.wood02
Why Race Across The World?
Alfie: "I think we wanted to take part in the series mainly because we're both lovers of travelling and have done a little bit of travelling before but never done the whole backpacking, country-hopping situation. It was something that we wanted to try further down the line anyway and we thought it would be such a great experience that it would be impossible to say no to."
Owen: "We wanted to do this because, as Alfie said, we wanted to go travelling and we've never done this sort of thing together. Also, we wanted to put our friendship to the test, see what we can achieve with it. And personally, ourselves we wanted to see how we'd deal in this sort of situation and how well we can do, see if we can make it to the end and maybe even win."
Do you have a strategy?
Alfie: "We have discussed a strategy. The strategy is, in very loose terms, earn first and race later. So, particularly in the first leg just try and not eat into our spending too much. We think that everybody in the first leg is going to be quite 'Gung Ho' and perhaps aren't going to have that much headspace, they're going to be a little bit erratic, so we're going to try and take advantage of that. But I think as soon as that klaxon goes that might all go out the window!"
Owen: "We also thought that strategy would be a good idea so we have a bit of extra cash if we need it to fall back on. If we do find ourselves coming last on one of the legs or at a checkpoint we will then have a bit of cash so we can leapfrog if we need it."
What creature comfort have you brought with you?
Alfie: "Music. That's our big one."
Owen: "We both brought iPods, we brought a speaker. I think music's the one thing we need."
What will your biggest challenges be on the race?
Alfie: "Finances and staying sane would be probably fair. Obviously, finances is the tangible one and I just think as time goes on we're going to get more and more dragged down, particularly if we're low on sleep, low on food, low on money, it's going to add up very quickly. We're both quite young so we've still got that drive in us, but we'll see how that looks in week six with no sleep."
Race Across The World continues Wednesdays at 9pm on BBC One.
Neil Wilkes
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