Meet the Teams of The Amazing Race!

Just days before taking off on their mysterious and grueling journey around the world, the teams of the 15th season of The Amazing Race have been revealed. Use this handy guide to get a leg up on your office pool before the new season starts September 27th on CBS.

Maria Ho (26) and Tiffany “Hot Chips” Michelle (25)
Hometown: Los Angeles
Relationship: Professional poker players who’ve been friends for five years
Why They’ll Win: Cooler heads often prevail in this contest and these card sharks have plenty of practice controlling their emotions. “If you let other people get in your head and lose your calm, you will make a crucial mistake,” Michelle said. Plus, they’re both fit, single and they’ve also traveled extensively together for tournaments. Ho speaks Mandarin while Michelle is fluent in sign language.
Why They Won’t: There has never been a victorious all-female team. But Ho is disregarding the odds: “Poker is a male-dominated profession,” she says. “We’re used to being underdogs.”

Mika Combs (22) and Canaan Smith (26)
Hometown: Nashville
Relationship: An aspiring country singer and waitress and a songwriter who’ve been dating for a few months
Why They’ll Win: Trying to break into the music business, they’ve gotten used to performing in front of strangers, tackling jitters, long hours, late nights and skipping meals. “I’m used to going from sun up to sundown and she spends 15 hours on her feet waiting tables,” Smith says. “We always do what we need to get by.”
Why They Won’t: Their combined list of fears is a mile long — snakes, heights, roller coasters, water. “I brought my hot pink floaties [because] I don’t have confidence yet,” Combs admitted. And then there’s that whole thing about only knowing each other for eight months.

Marcy Malloy (60) and Ron Shalita (59)
Hometown: San Francisco
Relationship: Advertising photographer and a day trader/math tutor who met online a year ago
Why They’ll Win: To prepare, they went rock climbing and did a ropes course to overcome Shalita’s fear of heights, swam in the frigid bay, drove a Winnebago and walked on stilts. Malloy even practiced breathing in small spaces (she’s claustrophobic) and set up a balance beam in her living room. “It’s been a big lark preparing; intense experiences bond people,” says Malloy, who speaks three languages and was raised around the globe as a military brat.
Why They Won’t: Being the oldest team hasn’t been worked in the past. But considering Marcy takes trapeze classes, these are not your average senior citizens. “We want people to write us off as the old couple they don’t have to worry about,” he said.

Eric (41) and Lisa Paskel (43)
Hometown: Encino, Calif.
Relationship: Yoga studio owners who have been married for 19 years save for an eight-month divorce
Why They’ll Win: They’re survivors. Both overcame addiction, saved their marriage after a break 11 years ago, raised two daughters and regularly train celebrities like Jessica Biel. “There’s nothing that can separate Eric and I now. Not heaven or hell, water or stress and certainly not a bad taxi driver,” Lisa pledged. “We may kill each other or make sweet love the whole time, but the opportunity to be one on one with my man is priceless.”
Why They Won’t: They’re vegans in a contest that usually features bizarre food-eating challenges. They intend to employ mind-over-matter disassociation tactics to choke meat down, but neither wants to go there. “Even when I ate meat, I would have turned down camel penis,” he said.

Nathaniel “Big Easy” Lofton (28) and Herb Lang (32)
Hometown: New Orleans and Bossier City, La.
Relationship: Teammates on the Harlem Globetrotters for five years
Why They’ll Win: These expert jetsetters spend eight months a year touring the world together (Lang’s been to 65 countries; Lofton 35). Having lived through Hurricane Katrina, Lofton could only come up with two things that scare them: “I just hope we don’t have to watch a scary movie or go into a haunted house. The black guys always die first. I’m also afraid of Herb’s mom. If we lose because we did something stupid, she will wring our necks.”
Why They Won’t: Others might fear their overused passports and laundry list of talents (swimming, fish-gutting, adventurous palettes) and align against them. “We don’t want to be on the wrong side of the U-turn,” Lang said.

Lance Layne (41) and Keri Morrlone (33)
Hometown: Salem and Peabody, Mass.
Relationship: A lawyer and finance manager set to marry two weeks after the end of the race
Why They’ll Win: Wedding costs have left them without money for a honeymoon, so they’re motivated. “I’d like to see the big animals in Africa. I see us as lions on the race so it’d be nice to mix with our own kind,” he said. “I’m used to yelling and deceiving and persuading. We have stressful jobs so we don’t get a lot of sleep. We work out a lot.”
Why They Won’t: With the wedding album on her mind, she refuses to do appearance-altering tasks. “We cannot shave our heads get tattoos,” she said. “We have to have hair in my pictures.”

Meghan Rickey (23) and Cheyne Whitney (23)
Hometown: San Diego
Relationship: A public relations exec and student who met playing tetherball in grade school and became a couple after reconnecting at a frat party
Why They’ll Win: They’re all-American — young, beautiful, in great shape (running and water sports are their specialties), college-educated, extremely close and determined to have a grand adventure before getting hitched. He explained their plan: “We’re going in knowing we need to stay relaxed and tone down our competitiveness. It’s a marathon not a sprint.”
Why They Won’t: Whitney rolled his ankle playing Frisbee on the beach two weeks before departure: “[It was] black and blue and swollen. His uncle, a doctor, was like, ‘He’ll be fine in four to six weeks.’ Only we knew we didn’t have that kind of time.”

Garrett Paul (28) and Jessica Stout (27)
Hometown: Aptos and Larkspur, Calif.
Relationship: A day trader and freelance editor who met studying abroad in Spain and have dated on and off for seven years
Why They’ll Win: Traveling is less hobby and more lifestyle for this bilingual (Spanish) couple who’ve done the bulk of their vacationing together. “My parents took me out of school when I was 13 and we [spent 12] weeks in Europe and Africa to instill that love of travel,” Paul said, adding that the twosome had also explored Europe, the South Pacific, Central and South America together.
Why They Won’t: She admits to having a fiery Latin temper and there’s got to be a reason why they’re on their fourth (and, according to both, final) take on this relationship.

Dan (21) and Sam McMillen (23)
Hometown: Kansas City, Mo., and Fort Worth, Texas
Relationship: Gay brothers who only just came out to each other last year
Why They’ll Win: They have a healthy sibling rivalry, but are 10 times closer since sharing their secret. They believe being physically fit “polar opposites” will help them run a well-rounded race and when brains or brawn fail, they’ll bust out the Midwestern charm.
Why They Won’t: The stress of knowing they have to come out to their small town, religious family before the show airs may weigh on their mind. Also, “I’m so afraid of cats and Sam is afraid of guns and heights,” Dan says. “As long as there isn’t a challenge where we are shooting cats out of guns on a tightrope, we should be able to stay out of the fetal position.”

Justin Kanew (29) and Zev Glassenberg (26)
Hometown: Los Angeles and Sherman Oaks, Calif.
Relationship: Best friends who met six years ago when working as camp counselors
Why They’ll Win: The unemployed Glassenberg has financial motivation on his side and is a fanatical follower of The Race. “If you’re good to people around the world and other teams, you’ll get the good taxis and people will show you how to get places,” he says, explaining his theory of karma.
Why They Won’t: Glassenberg suffers from Asperger’s and is anti-social in a very social game. Big groups, loud noises, being touched near the ears set him off and he doesn’t filter his reactions.

Gary (47) and Matt Tomljenovich (22)
Hometown: Laurel and Bozeman, Mont.
Relationship: A conservative mortgage broker and his metal-loving son
Why They’ll Win: The outdoorsy do-it-yourselfers are convinced they’re filling the “hicks from the sticks” quota since they live on 22 acres with horses and barn. “If it comes down to driving a tractor, target shooting, chopping wood or mending a fence, we’re golden,” Matt said.
Why They Won’t: They admit they have almost nothing in common and haven’t spent any quality time together since the college student was a tot. “We spent more time just the two of us filling out the application than we ever had before,” Gary said.

Ericka Dunlap (27) and Brian Kleinschmidt (27)
Hometown: Nashville
Relationship: Miss America 2004 and her husband, a sports marketer who sees The Race as the honeymoon they never had, are the show’s first interracial couple
Why They’ll Win: When their team bandanas arrived via FedEx and they were yellow, the couple believed it was a good omen. “I was the only Miss America crowned in yellow,” Dunlap explained. “It’s sort of my trademark.” Since they were chosen, they’ve also been practicing driving stick, swimming and training more frequently (she lost 25 pounds).
Why They Won’t: They aren’t seasoned travelers and are concerned other groups might assume they don’t need the money and gang up on them. “She won scholarship money and went to school. We have to work like everyone else, “said Kleinschmidt.