Romber Loses "Race"

It was an amazing night for Uchenna and Joyce Agu.

The married couple from Houston sprinted across the finish line to victory in Tuesday night's finale of The Amazing Race, beating out newlywed Survivor vets Rob Mariano and Amber Brkich.

Over the course of the series, the Agus faced down many challenges, including weighing strangers in Turkey, balancing water jugs on their heads in Africa and chopping onions in Jamaica.

Perhaps the most emotional task undertaken by the couple was Joyce's decision to shave her head in India as part of a Fast Forward challenge in order to allow the couple to skip to the end of the leg.

"Once you shave it off, you have nothing to hide behind," Joyce told the Associated Press. "People can actually see your soul. It's so bizarre. I'm glad I did it."

Despite beginning the final leg of the race in last place, with no money or possessions to their names, the Agus managed to beat the odds by begging strangers for money in order to pay for their transportation along the way and sweet-talking their way onto a flight to Miami that had already closed its doors.

With the finish line in sight and Mariano and Brkich closing the gap between first and second place, the Agus continued to scramble for money to pay off the disgruntled cab driver who had driven them to their final destination.

Finally, the Agus succeeded in paying the fare and ran to meet host Phil Keoghan on the winners' platform, with previously eliminated racers cheering them on.

The pair, who have had trouble conceiving a child, said they planned to use their million-dollar prize to pay for in vitro fertilization, as well as to settle bills (as former employees of Enron and WorldCom, they lost their life savings and filed for bankruptcy before the race) and take their family on a trip.

However, the Agus' newly gained notoriety has already started to pay off.

"My doctors offered us a free round of in vitro [fertilization]," Joyce told the Associated Press. "So after all this is over, if it doesn't work out, we have the money. We can adopt."

The Agus' victory came as no surprise to offshore bookie Sportsbook.com, which stopped taking bets on the show's outcome months ago after receiving a disproportionately high number of wagers on the couple from accounts originating in Massachusetts and California.

Meanwhile, the Agus' first-place finish did come as a surprise to the ever-confident Mariano, who repeatedly predicted that he and Brkich would take home the win over the course of the show.

Even so, Mariano claimed he wouldn't change a thing. "I got Amber and that's first place in my book," the Boston native proclaimed.

The couple, who forged their relationship while competing on Survivor: All Stars (which Brkich won and Mariano finished second), will soon be seen again on the small screen when their two-hour wedding special, Rob and Amber Get Married, airs May 24 on CBS.

The race didn't end quite as happily for third-place finishers Ron Young and Kelly McCorkle. The former POW and the beauty queen strained their relationship to its limits over the course of the show and ultimately realized their priorities were not the same.

"I don't want to be married right now. I cannot handle anyone controlling me," Young told a tear-stained McCorkle, who had made no secret of her desire to walk down the aisle and start a family.

That kind of drama, combined with Mariano and Brkich's status as reality "celebrities," drew record numbers of viewers to this season of The Amazing Race, which averaged 12.5 million viewers each week.

The eighth edition of The Amazing Race is due this fall, with a new twist--instead of teams of two, families of four will be in the running for the $1 million prize.