‘The Amazing Race’: Phil Keoghan Gets Emotional Wishing He Could Compete With His Dad

Imagining who you’d play The Amazing Race with is a universal viewing experience for fans of CBS‘s hit reality competition series. Even host Phil Keoghan thinks about who he’d want to play with. TV Insider caught up with Keoghan at a CBS press event in Los Angeles in May, and he got emotional when sharing that if he could play The Amazing Race with anyone in the world, “it would be my dad,” John Keoghan. But the host reveals that his dad “is not doing so good right now.”

The Amazing Race Season 37 finale airs tonight, May 15, at 9/8c on CBS. John, who’s now in his 80s, has appeared on The Amazing Race with his son before. He was a Pit Stop greeter in Season 13 (see below).

“Unfortunately, my dad is not doing so good right now,” Keoghan shared with TV Insider, saying, “It’s just a recent thing, and so I treasure the adventures that I’ve had with him throughout my life, but when I think about the ultimate partner, he’s the first one that comes to mind. I get to spend time with him.”

He detailed why his dad would be “the ultimate partner” for The Amazing Race, sharing childhood memories of their own family travel adventures while he was at it: “My dad is like a walking encyclopedia, just a wealth of knowledge. He’s well-traveled. He’s a plant scientist. He’s very physical, but he’s also super smart and good at puzzles. We’ve traveled on a lot of adventures together ever since I was 3, being on his shoulders walking down to the Grand Canyon to retracing the 1928 Tour de France, and he was the support for me. I rode across America raising money for M.S. [multiple sclerosis] and he was driving the support vehicle. Yeah, my dad would be the ultimate partner.”

.@thetedsaid Take Dad to Work Day @NoOppWasted #AmazingRace @PureNewZealand @FlyAirNZ meet my friends Sun nite pic.twitter.com/nMKd5q7qdf

— Phil Keoghan (@PhilKeoghan) March 1, 2013

Keoghan was grateful to have gotten the chance to add another father-son adventure recently.

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“I just got back from New Zealand yesterday and I flew down to spend some time with him and we went on another adventure together,” the host shared. “We went driving through the South Island in New Zealand, so I’ve been making the most of my time with him.”

John has had a big influence on The Amazing Race. Keoghan told TV Insider ahead of Season 37 that he used social media reactions across various platforms to compile data analysis that helped determine The Amazing Race‘s Top 50 best moments, according to fans. It was John who taught Keoghan that “science doesn’t lie,” the host said, and that if he can prove something with data, he should always make the effort to do so.

That “massive analysis” revealed that John’s cameo as a Pit Stop greeter did, in fact, make it into the ranking of fan-favorite moments, which was surely a memorable moment for the host himself.

— Reporting by Michael Maloney

The Amazing Race, Season 37 Finale, Thursday, May 15, 9/8c, CBS