On Monday night, Troy Cullen found himself in the elimination arena for the very first time. The Australian Ninja Warrior had managed to win a whopping four daily challenge wins across the season, and in the elimination against Konrad Bień-Stephen, Troy really put his body on the line.
In the pato brawl elimination, Konrad and Troy had to wrestle a ball out of their opponent's hand. "What you didn't see is that the first round went for about 30-35 minutes," Troy told 10 Play.
"The second round went for nearly an hour, so we were in there a long time and I was getting beaten up a lot. It was pretty full-on."
Troy's strategy was to wait until Konrad was fatigued before he'd whip the ball out of his hands. Konrad's strategy was to beat Troy to a pulp in the hopes that his grip would slip at some point. Troy, victorious, was battered, bruised and bleeding but still in the competition. And then Brihony Dawson revealed to the three remaining pairs that the final challenge would begin immediately.
The bloodied smile on Troy's face fell as he realised there'd be no rest between the brutal elimination and the absolute marathon that lay ahead of the finalists.
"All that was going through my brain was like, I didn't just go through that amount of physical pain and I didn't endure that to then bomb out in the final straight away," Troy said. "I knew that I just had to control what I could control and just try and do my best with the body I had in the final."
From the get-go, Troy was clearly one of the biggest physical threats in the game. His training for Ninja gave him the physical strength and endurance upper hand and, leading up to the show, he made sure to train himself on puzzles. All that was left for him to sort out was the social side of the game.
"I felt like, when I got in the house, everyone was sort of cliquey and knew each other and had past relationships," Troy said. Thankfully and almost immediately Troy gravitated towards Big Brother's Marley Biyendolo and the pair were able to watch from the sidelines as two alliances clashed.
"Everyone was so hellbent on keeping their numbers and taking out other numbers, they were more concerned about numbers it meant that me and Marley, only being two people, weren't ever a target," Troy said.
"We were minimising our threat levels massively, that was definitely part of both our game plans and we'd chat about it pretty much every night after a challenge," he continued, adding that watching the drama in the house unfold was very surreal.
"I was there to chill and have fun, I knew there'd be drama but I thought it'd be more game drama," he added. "I was just incredibly surprised by how personal it got.
"We were all there to play a game, if you get put in [to an elimination] you've got to understand that they're just doing what they believe is best for their game. It's not a personal attack! I feel like everybody in there was taking it so personally."
Having to push for 24 hours, Troy was exhausted when he finally crossed the finish line. "My body was just dead. My calves were seizing up, they were cramping but I was just running with cramped calves, it was moving to my quads... but when I saw that finish line I was like thank god. I didn't know how much more I had in me."
With the fastest time of the men, Troy was crowned the first-ever Aussie Challenge winner alongside Kiki Morris. The pair each won $100,000 as well as entry into The Challenge: Global Championship which will air on Paramount+ and will see winners from around the world competing against each other.
"That was the best part for me," Troy admitted. "I just wanted to represent Australia and go to Worlds. Being a Challenge fan, you know, going in and competing there was one of the main driving factors for me. To open up the opportunity to go to worlds, that was the only way you could guarantee your spot."
Catch up on the full season of The Challenge Australia on 10 Play on demand
