Warning: This article contains spoilers for the season finale ofThe Challenge: Battle for a New Champion.
Nurys ultimately crossed the finish line in second place.
“I luckily have had enough time to get over it,” Nurys tells EW.
Competitors in the finale challenge.MTV
MTV
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So what happened?
Why aren’t we talking about the underdog pulling out the win in the end?
NURYS MATEO:I’ve got to give credit to Emanuel regardless.
Competitors in the finale challenge.MTV
He is a great competitor.
And then if I would have came in second, I would have no excuse.
That’s probably the hardest thing throughout the whole season.
I wanted it to be people who fought for their shot to be there.
Honestly, I was still very hopeful the entire time.
I told myself when I got there that I won.
No one’s gonna beat me.
This was set up for me, this was meant for me.
I felt very confident, except for the ones where you have to balance the pegs.
I was like, “This is going to be a cakewalk.”
All the numbers were jumbled up, my brain just wasn’t working.
That happened to me about three times and I had to reset and then start all over.
And it just wasn’t working.
The diving, you saw I couldn’t even read the thing without crying.
I instantly thought that was going to be my downfall.
And then I got to the Sudoku and that was my downfall.
You really never know what’s going to be the turning point, either good or bad.
How far behind Emanuel were you when you crossed the finish line?
I’m not exactly sure.
If you ask him, he likes to lie and say he was there an hour ahead.
I don’t think that’s accurate.
I would say 15-20 minutes or so.
He could run a faster two miles than I could.
But I don’t think I was too far behind.
I really think that I was right there.
The race for third also seemed close, so how long did it take Colleen and Corey to finish?
It was a decent amount of time to the time that Colleen got to us.
I was heartbroken for him to not place because of a balance beam, that really sucks.
And then we just had to wait for Berna to get there.
How long did it take Berna to finish?
[Laughs] We were waiting a decent amount of time.
Was there any portion of the final that wasnt shown in the episodes?
Any extra legs or checkpoints that you had to do?
The one thing from watching the episodes that was missed was the elimination that I did against Moriah.
We actually had a clue on how to do that puzzle across the island.
And the moment TJ rang the horn, Moriah took off.
I do pretty good at puzzles, so I stayed to work on the puzzle.
I sprinted to get to the clue.
And it was absolutely no help!
I just ran over here for no reason.
I think I’m heading home.
And then I got back to the puzzle and she was still working on it.
I still have a chance.
It was huge and I wish they would have shown it that way.
Last season, I only went into elimination once and I lost.
I was like, “You have to redeem yourself.”
It’s crazy to think that now my elimination record is three-one, and I technically eliminated five people.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
