Race Across the World winners crowned after tense final dash-Kitty Chrisp-Entertainment – Metro

The race is won! (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert/Pete Dadds)

Race Across the World is over for another season as best friends Alfie and Owen are crowned winners with 12 minutes to spare.

Having spanned seven countries in their no-fly journey across Asia, the best friends pipped mother and daughter Eugenie and Isabel to the post and claimed the £20,000 prize.

Arriving in Lombok after a 9,000 mile journey – without phones or planes – from Sapporo, Japan, the pair looked delighted to finally reach their destination.

It came after a tense race to the finish line, which at one point saw the pairs neck and neck in two boats racing across the water.

However, the winning pals were crowned after some brilliant navigation skills at the last moment, as they reflected on their friendship being ‘bigger’ than any race.

In third came brother and sister Betty and James, as couple Stephen and Viv admitted defeat a little before the final hours, but shared a tearful moment of mutual appreciation along the way.

Alfie and Owen and Eugenie and Isabel were neck and neck (Picture: Studio Lambert)

Eugenie said the experience has taught her to live life for the now(Picture: Studio Lambert)

The finalists all previously agreed that it was best friends Alfie and Owen who were ‘the ones to beat’ during the final leg of the BBC show – and their worries have proved justified.

The finalists all recently said that the competition taught them to ‘live in the moment a little bit more’.

‘Appreciate what’s in front of you rather than having to forward plan all the time or having to have an answer for everything,’ Betty said.

The 25-year-old recently opened up to Metro.co.uk about the most touching TV moment this year she shared with brother James, as she opened up to the world about a health condition which left her ‘without a womb’ .

‘I’ve had stories from girls who have been diagnosed with the same condition, and it has been incredible to hear them and that I’ve helped someone out there,’ she said ahead of the final.

Eugenie also recently discussed the life-changing TV show, and how it’s shifted her perspective.

‘It’s just about being more adventurous and not just continuing with the mundane. It’s about living your life, it’s about living your life every day,’ she said.

‘Things come at you, go for it and do it. Rather than planning in a year’s time, in two years’ time, in five years’ time. There might not be a five years’ time or a two years’ time. So, live your life now.’

Stephen and Viv have enjoyed quite the 9,000-mile adventure (Picture: Studio Lambert)

Betty and James are perhaps the epitome of sibling teamwork (Picture: BBC/Studio Lambert/Pete Dadds)

Alfie and Owen both agreed their biggest challenge of the ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ eight-week trip was the hunger, while Viv suggested she found the lack of comfort a problem.

‘We’ve never train-ed, let alone slept on a train. We’ve never travelled via bus, let alone slept on a bus. So curling up and trying to sleep on a stiflingly hot train, that was so noisy, and disorientating. That was quite tough, really,’ she said.

‘And then not only doing that but having to go straight to work afterwards. You’d get off a 12 or 16-hour train, and then had to go to work for six hours in the blistering heat. That’s quite challenging.’

The first two episodes of the BAFTA-award winning series reached 7.1million viewers, making Studio Lambert’s original format the biggest BBC factual title of the year to date.

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