| Aras Baskauskas | |
|---|---|
| Born | September 26, 1981 Venice, California |
Aras Baskauskas (born September 26, 1981) was the winner of Survivor: Panama. He is of Lithuanian descent, holding Lithuanian and American citizenship.
The maternal grandson of Days of our Lives actor Macdonald Carey, Baskauskas appeared on the show in 1988 as one of the children listening to Dr. Tom Horton (played by Carey) read the Christmas story.[1]
Baskauskas played collegiate NCAA Division I basketball at UC Irvine from 2000 to 2004, where he was an honored as a Big West Conference scholar athlete for three seasons. He received his B.A. in philosophy in 2002 and his MBA in 2004. After college he had chance to sign contract with professional basketball club Alita in Lithuania but he decided to go to South Africa to learn more about yoga.[2]
Baskauskas currently resides in Venice, CA. He is the CEO of TundraGear.com, a winter hat company. He also spends much of his time and energy teaching yoga in Santa Monica. Additionally, he is part of The Cheshire Project, a non-profit that benefits people with disabilities.
Originally part of the Younger Male Viveros tribe, Aras did not become a target early in the game, leading his tribe to victory in the first immunity challenge. In Episode 2, Aras became a member of the Casaya tribe and formed an early alliance with Shane Powers, Courtney Marit and Danielle DiLorenzo. But the alliance was threatened with extinction when Shane wanted to quit the game, having smoked three packets of cigarettes a day prior to Survivor. But Aras convinced him not to quit and the alliance voted out Melinda Hyder instead.
In Episode 5, Aras led the charge to vote out Bruce Kanegai due to their clashing points of view, but Courtney, Danielle and Cirie Fields felt that Bobby Mason was much more of a threat than Bruce and they voted Bobby out. When the tribes merged in Episode 7, the ex-Casaya tribe members consisting of Aras, Shane, Bruce, Cirie, Courtney and Danielle had the power in numbers against the four ex-La Mina tribe members. Due to Terry Deitz, the largest target, winning immunity, the alliance voted out Nick Stanbury, Austin Carty and Sally Schumann in three straight tribal councils.
At the Final 7, Bruce was evacuated out of the game due to constipation, causing him immense pain. When Terry continued to win individual immunity, the alliance was forced to turn on themselves at the final six. Shane, together with Cirie and Aras targeted Danielle, but Courtney, together with Terry, Danielle and Cirie wanted to vote out Aras. Not happy with any of these options, Cirie brewed a plan of her own, and together with Aras and Danielle, voted out Courtney, whom Cirie believed was aligned with Shane.
At the final five, Terry continued his immunity winning streak and once again the alliance was forced to take out one of their own. Shane, believing he was safe, targeted Danielle. But once again Cirie had her own plans and together with Aras and Danielle, they voted out Shane, whom had aligned with Terry. At the final four, the long-standing rivalry between Terry and Aras was once again raised when Aras won a reward, much to Terry's dismay. When sent to Exile Island, Terry and Danielle formed an alliance against Aras and Cirie with plans of ousting Aras.
But Aras managed to win immunity, making him safe. Terry, due to the widely-known fact that he possessed the hidden immunity idol, was also safe. This created a 2-2 tie between Danielle and Cirie, whom competed in a fire-building challenge to determine their fate. Shown over two episodes, Danielle won the challenge and Aras' ally Cirie was eliminated. With Terry's idol now useless, it was now fair game between the final three, Aras, Danielle and Terry.
At the final immunity challenge, Danielle out-balanced the two guys to win immunity, giving her the power to choose her opponent in the final two. Danielle eventually chose to eliminate Terry, making him the final member of the jury and propelling Aras into the final two. The challenge ended the perceived battle between both Terry and Aras. Aras suffered from a large inferiority complex compared to Terry which came out multiple times. Aras felt that he was competitive yet lost each and every time except for a reward challenge adventure to the Panama Canal and the immunity challenge in the same episode. That immunity challenge was the one that enabled Terry to not use the hidden immunity idol he had had since the second episode. On the reward challenge he brought Cirie.
On Day 39, while he and Danielle had glasses of champagne, Aras slipped on a wet rock and fell, sending shards of glass into his hand and back. His wounds required seven stitches by the medical crew.
In the end, despite the injury, Aras Baskauskas beat out Danielle DiLorenzo to become the Sole Survivor in a 5-2 vote, gaining the votes of Austin Carty, Sally Schumann, Courtney Marit, Cirie Fields and Terry Deitz.
| Preceded by Danni Boatwright |
Title of Sole Survivor Panama |
Succeeded by Yul Kwon |