Who are Alfie and Owen? Meet Race Across the World 2024 contestants

So far, the duos have found themselves in Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and now the Indonesian island of Sumatra as they get closer and closer to their final checkpoint – which only team will get to first.

Among the duos taking on the journey of a lifetime are best friends Alfie and Owen – a Hertfordshire-based football referee and trainee fighter pilot, respectively. But will they go to distance?

Here's everything we know about the Race Across the World pair, who already have a strategy to make it far in the competition!

Who are Alfie and Owen?

Relationship: Friends

From: Hertfordshire

Jobs: Football referee, trainee pilot

According to Owen, the sport lovers are "very competitive" and are looking forward to "roughing it" as they navigate their way forward.

"We’ve always played sports throughout our whole lives, and we still do as well," Owen said. "So, I think we will carry that competitiveness over from that and bring it into this. We want to win."

And when it comes to the challenges ahead, Alfie is embracing them. "I prefer working under pressure than without it," he said. "I think in terms of that, I should be alright."

But one thing the pair might struggle with is telling the time. "We thought we’d prepared for the trip until we realised yesterday neither of us have a watch, so we have no way of telling the time – I wasn’t impressed when I found that out," Alfie admitted.

"I have got a digital watch, but I can’t figure out how to change the time on it. I thought everything was going to be fine, as I assumed Owen was going to bring an analogue - but then I realised he didn’t have anything!"

Why did Alfie and Owen want to take part in Race Across the World?

Best friends since school, the pair want to put their friendship to the test with their hardest challenge yet.

"I think we wanted to take part in the series mainly because we’re both lovers of travelling and have done a little bit of travelling before, but never done the whole backpacking, country-hopping situation," Alfie said.

Read More:

• Race Across the World 2024 route: Season 4 locations
• Race Across the World 2024 cast: Meet the contestants in the line-up

Owen added: "We wanted to do this because, as Alfie said, we wanted to go travelling and we’ve never done this sort of thing together. Also, we wanted to put our friendship to the test, see what we can achieve with it.

"And personally, ourselves, we wanted to see how we’d deal in this sort of situation and how well we can do, see if we can make it to the end and maybe even win."

When is Race Across the World 2024 on TV?

Race Across the World airs every Wednesday on BBC One and iPlayer at 9pm. The next episode will air on Wednesday 22nd May.

Race Across the World 2024 continues on BBC One and BBC iPlayer every Wednesday at 9pm.

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