Romain, you break down in the final straight, in the car, what is going through your head?
Roman: “I am caught up in all my emotions. In the final stretch, I realize that it’s possible that we won’t win and I wonder how I will react if we arrive and the girls [les autres finalistes, ndlr] are already there. I told myself that if we lost, there would be no regrets, but that I would be so sad for us… That’s all I think about but at that moment, Laura is so strong, she believes in it such… “
On this point, your finale reflects your adventure: you are very complementary, including in your way of managing stress and emotions…
Laura: “It’s true that we complemented each other well. I surprised myself. It was the first time that I left my partner and my four-year-old daughter, and I managed to ignore that, to put my feelings aside to be mobilized for the adventure. This is what made me strong. And when I saw that Romain needed to express himself, to let go, I could be there for him. And when I was down, he was always there for me too. This is how we moved forward. And in the end, I was convinced that victory was for us. And I knew that Romain could hold the final sprint. He amazed me throughout the whole adventure. »
When you win, you collapse and Laura, you pick up Romain and tell him: ‘get up, we’re winners, we’re not staying on the ground’, it’s a strong reaction…
Laura: “It gives me chills to think back to that moment. When we pierce the canvas, we can only collapse, we are in our bubble, we forget all the people around. When we realize, I say to myself, we must stand up, we can be proud, we have won. It was crazy. »
And then, the other pair arrives…
Roman: “We can hear them coming. We didn’t know how to welcome them… Personally, I was very uncomfortable. We were happy to make the final with Patricia and Jessica, we love them a lot, and we were sad for them. »
Were there things that surprised you or that you rediscovered while watching the shows?
Roman : “I remember everything, everything, everything. These are things that we cannot forget. You should know that a stage, we have the impression that it is two days on TV, but it is three. When we watch the show, we sometimes get frustrated with things that aren’t shown when we would have liked our loved ones to see them. Only Laura and I know everything we’ve been through. We are filmed from morning to evening, what we see on TV is only an extract of our adventure. But we’re super happy to get back into the race every week… We look at each other, but we also relive it. »
Laura : “We remember everything exactly. We made a little notebook and in the evening we took fifteen minutes and wrote down everything we could, because we wanted to be able to tell everything to our loved ones when we got home. So it’s true that there is frustration at not finding moments on screen that were just as interesting… There are so many things missing, these are snippets of our adventure. »
How did those around you react to your adventure?
Roman: “Above all, there is a lot of pride. My mother and my partner always believed in me, they knew that we had the ability to go far with Laura. When we told them we had won, they were super proud but not surprised. »
Have you looked at social media and the comments about you?
Laura: ” Yes a bit. We always want to know if people prefer one pair or another. We realize with Romain that we are very lucky, because we have a fairly caring community. Overall, the comments were very good. We saw that other pairs had to face a lot of nastiness, it hurt us. It must be difficult to live with… People don’t realize the harm it can do. »
Roman: “People judge what they see on the screen, during a show, it’s easy… They don’t realize what we’re experiencing. (…) During the casting phases, we met with a psychologist to prepare us to deal with the comments. We must ignore it. But it’s true that the comments about us weren’t very bad. »
Is it satisfying for you to say that viewers appreciated your pairing?
Roman: “We were natural and very fair from the start. In fact, we were dreading arriving after the start of the game (1) and we had such a warm welcome from the other candidates… We didn’t forget that and we remained fair play with everyone. In everyday life, we are super sociable, nice… We said to ourselves that we had to stay like that in the game.”
Now that the finale has aired, you can finally tell everything, it’s a relief. Who was in the know?
Roman : “I told my mother and my partner when I came home from filming, it was too hard otherwise. Laura also told her partner and her parents. We have known since October that we are winners, it is still May, it was a long time! »
Laura : “We couldn’t wait to be able to breathe and free ourselves from all that. But we are sad to say that we will no longer have these moments to get together and watch the show. Even if we know that with Romain, we will continue to see each other since we have become real friends. »
You have won almost 78,000 euros, what are your plans with this sum?
Roman : “Share them already!” (laughs) I already know that I am going to return to Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam [les lieux de l’aventure Pékin express, ndlr] with my partner to do our own little ‘Beijing express’. »
(1) Laura and Romain were replacement pairs, they were called to replace a pair who dropped out after the second stage.
