Former UC Riverside Track Athletes to Compete on 'The Amazing Race'

Record-setting former UC Riverside track and field standouts Danielle Littleton and Jazmine Lewis will be teammates again on the 27th season of “The Amazing Race,” CBS announced Wednesday.

Littleton set school records in the 100 meter hurdles, heptathlon and indoor long jump. She won the Big West Conference championships in the women’s long jump and 100 meter hurdles in 2014. Littleton was selected as the Big West Conference’s Freshman of the Year in 2011.

Littleton’s career with the Highlanders concluded in June when she finished 20th in the women’s long jump at the NCAA Championships.

Lewis was second in the heptathlon in the 2013 Big West Championships, setting a school record.

Littleton said she hopes “to gain an even closer relationship with” Lewis through competing on “The Amazing Race” “and create even more memories by going on this once in a lifetime experience.”

“I want us to be 80 years old talking about how we went on ‘The Amazing Race,” the 23-year-old Littleton said.

Lewis, also 23, is a member of the LA Galaxy Star Squad, which represents the Major League Soccer team at home games and events and makes community appearances. She described herself as outspoken, outgoing and high- maintenance.

Other two-members teams include two cousins; a husband and wife; a mother and son; two brothers; an engaged couple; co-workers on the entertainment news program “TMZ”; dating co-workers; and two former New York Jets cheerleaders.

The competition series’ 27th season will begin on Sept. 25. The race will start at Venice Beach, with the teams then traveling to Rio de Janeiro. The winning team will receive $1 million.

--City News Service, photo courtesy of CBS