Two-time Australian Memory Champion Anastasia Woolmer is the first to go on this year’s season of Survivor Australia: Champions versus Contenders.
Though actress Pia Miranda’s name was thrown around, the Champion tribe voted Woolmer off claiming she didn’t have the strength to continue on. But the memory athlete and trained ballerina says her campmates underestimated her abilities and wishes she could have used her skills and strategies more.
Keep scrolling for our exclusive chat with her.
TV WEEK: Anastasia, how does it feel to be the first contestant eliminated from Australian Survivor 2019?
Anastasia: I’m ok now, I’ve had a bit of time to process it! Obviously no one wants to be that first person voted out but really my major disappointment was that as a memory expert I had this strategy in place where I was building a file on each of the competitors and what happened at tribals, what happened in competitions, in everything.
So basically it would’ve been great to pull that out half way through the season or in the final two and have all this information that I could have categorically used to my advantage. I think that would’ve been exciting and good fun to store and pull out all this information like a computer.
And also as an ex ballet dancer, the physical challenges are really fun so I wanted to do more of those.
Anastasia was disappointed she didn’t have more time to try out her strategy.
(Image: Network Ten)TV WEEK: There was a lot of talk about strength in that tribal council, do you think the Champions underestimated yours?
Anastasia: I think there’s a tendency generally to think of dancers as looking nice but the reality of being a professional dancer is it’s really hard physically and mentally.
I think it’s one of those athletic pursuits that gets classed as the arts when the reality is it’s a very physical thing. You take off your shoes and there’s blood in there, that’s how you know you’ve had a good day’s work. Even the athleticism that’s required to do some of the performances all the while looking like it’s light and easy, that’s the mark of a professional in a ballet sense.
I think maybe the sports group might’ve underestimated the usefulness that I would bring to the tribe in that diversity of athleticism.
TV WEEK: You said that it was early days for groups and divisions in the tribe but the sports group formed pretty early on.
Anastasia: That’s it. Even though they didn’t think a dancer is in the same league as a football player or something, it’s still obviously more athletic than an actress. But that’s fine, I just hoped to be around a bit longer so they could see that.
It was disappointing as well that they didn’t realise there might be some mental aspects to the challenges where I could be useful. Maybe they didn’t understand what I do but some challenges have a memory aspect or puzzles or complicated mental challenges which is what I trained myself in.
“I think maybe the sports group might’ve underestimated the usefulness that I would bring to the tribe in that diversity of athleticism.”
(Image: Network Ten)TV WEEK: Did you have a feeling you were on the chopping block or did you think Pia [Miranda] was going to go?
Anastasia: Oh no, I knew that my name was out there very firmly and it’s difficult because when you come back from the challenge, there’s not a lot of time between coming back and when you have to go to tribal.
It felt very frantic so it’s difficult in that time frame to work out a solution because there’s so much going on. I knew my name was out there and I think it came out a little bit later in the afternoon closer to when we were having to go to tribal. It didn’t leave me a lot of time to work out some new magic!
And obviously being the second day, I couldn’t yet use these styles that I wanted to use. You can imagine if it was day 30 and you find out your name’s out there then at the tribal, if I suspected that say Nova put my name out there, in my head I can pull up the file that I made about Nova and see all the different times I’ve noticed something’s gone wrong about her and put up a really good argument.
It would’ve been really fun and I was looking forward to being able to go, ‘Now hang on, on day five this happened when we did this challenge, on day six this happened, day seven this happened, something doesn’t add up here.’ It would’ve been great, maybe next time!
Watch the trailer for the 2019 season of Survivor Australia: Champions versus Contenders. Post continues after video…
TV WEEK: How did you find camp life?
Anastasia: It’s pretty fun really. It’s fun to have that experience and I think a lot of people who want to be on Survivor are hungry for that challenge and want it to be hard. The first day I was there was all about making the shelter and that sort of stuff but it is what it is. If you’re the sort of person who likes that rough and tumble challenge, it’s good fun.
Obviously I wanted to go on for longer. I’d be interested to see how you’d progress as a human because it’s such an unusual experience and you’d start to view things differently, especially after 50 days. I think you’d get back to nature, not checking your Instagram, no comforts and you’d be getting quite zen.
TV WEEK: Who are the ones to watch who you think will be the sole Survivor?
Anastasia: If I was a betting girl either Pia or Janine. They’re totally different styles, Pia will be a bit more fly under the radar and Janine will probably be quite feisty. But Janine has a lot of strengths, she’s quite fast and Pia’s got that actress fly under the radar thing going on. So watch this space.
