With an immunity pin fastened to her apron, everyone assumed Sarah Tiong would play the pin and remove herself from the elimination round.
After all, if you had a chance to keep your place in MasterChef Australia
secure, why on earth would you not jump at it?
However, Sarah, 25, took a calculated gamble in last night’s episode of the cooking competition – deciding not to use the immunity pin.
Chatting to TV WEEK after making the controversial decision, Sarah admits her fellow contestants may have thought the choice was cocky.
“That probably would have gone through their minds,” she says.
“I’d say all of them were pretty surprised I wasn’t going to play the pin. They were really quite shocked.”
Sarah explains she decided not to use the pin in the elimination challenge filmed in Japan, because she felt like she had “great ideas up my sleeve”.
“I looked at the ingredients and I was familiar and I was feeling really inspired,” she says.
Instead of using the pin, Sarah then had to cook in a challenge against fellow contestants Tamara Graffen and Callan Smith.
In the end it was Sydney teenager Callan who was eliminated and bid a tearful farewell to the competition.
“I chose not to use the pin and it paid off,” Sarah says.
“It was a huge decision and there were a few restless moments, but I thought about this and I can save it for a more valuable time.”
With Callan eliminated, there are now eight contestants left vying for the title of MasterChef Australia in 2017.
