Tyson Apostol

Tyson Apostol
Born	(1979-06-17) June 17, 1979 Provo, Utah
Occupation	Reality show contestant, former professional bicyclist
Television	Survivor: Tocantins Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains Survivor: Blood vs. Water (winner)
Spouse(s)	Rachel Foulger (m. 2014)

Tyson Apostol (born June 17, 1979) is a reality television personality who was a contestant on CBS's reality show Survivor. He participated in Survivor: Tocantins and Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains. He later returned for a third season, Survivor: Blood vs. Water, in which he won the $1 million prize as Sole Survivor. Apostol is also a former professional cyclist.

Early life

Apostol was born in Provo, Utah, on June 17, 1979. He was raised in Lindon, Utah, and currently lives in Heber City, Utah.^[1] He is a bike shop owner, and former professional cyclist in Switzerland, Belgium, and Austria most notably riding for the Austrian professional continental team, Team Volksbank. He is also a dropout of Brigham Young University where he earned a swimming scholarship. He also spent two years in the Philippines as a Mormon missionary.^[1]

Survivor

Survivor: Tocantins

Apostol was preselected on the Timbira tribe before his arrival on the island for Survivor: Tocantins. Initially, Apostol stuck with the majority of the alliance, forming a particular alliance with Benjamin "Coach" Wade, who dubbed Apostol his "assistant coach." Early on, Coach and Apostol wanted to blindside Erinn Lobdell, however, he eventually sided with the majority and voted out the ill Jerry Sims. At the merge, Apostol won the first individual immunity by outlasting former tribe mate Debbie Beebe; Apostol went on to win immunity again with nine contestants left as well. Next, Coach and Apostol aligned with Stephen Fishbach, James "J.T." Thomas, Jr., and Beebe, who blindsided Brendan Synnott with Lobdell and Tamara "Taj" Johnson-George's cooperation. Sierra Reed became the target, but Thomas, Lobdell and Fishbach joined the other group who decided that Apostol was more of a threat than Reed, and Apostol was voted out and became the second juror. He eventually voted for Thomas to win the game.^[2]

For this season, Jeff Probst stated that Apostol was one of his favorites for being maniacal and unpredictable.^[3]

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains

Apostol accepted an offer to participate in Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains season, where he was assigned to the Villains tribe. Apostol's tribe dominated the initial immunity challenges. He formed an alliance with Jerri Manthey and fellow Tocantins participant Benjamin "Coach" Wade.^[4] He appeared to be safe after joining the alliance of Rob Mariano, Sandra Diaz-Twine, and Courtney Yates, along with Wade and Manthey. This group held a majority over the bloc of Russell Hantz, Parvati Shallow, and Danielle DiLorenzo. When both the Heroes and Villains tribes had to vote someone out consecutively, Mariano directed his alliance to split their votes due to Hantz's possession of a hidden immunity idol. Hantz manipulated Apostol into failing to adhere to Mariano's plan, and instead of forcing a tie, Apostol would switch his vote to Shallow. After Hantz gave Shallow the hidden immunity idol and she played it, Tyson was eliminated by a vote of 3-2 (Hantz's idol negated four votes against Shallow). Had Apostol stuck to Mariano's plan, he and Hantz would have tied 3-3, and Hantz would presumably have been eliminated on the revote. Apostol was the sixth survivor and the second Villain to be voted out in the season. Apostol's essentially voting himself out of the game has been called "one of the dumbest moves in Survivor history."^[5][6]

Survivor: Blood vs. Water

Apostol returned for Survivor‍ '​s 27th season, Survivor: Blood vs. Water. This time, he and his girlfriend, Rachel Foulger both were cast as contestants.^[7] Apostol was assigned to Galang tribe and Foulger to the Tadhana tribe. Foulger was the fourth person eliminated from the game after being the second contestant to be voted out in a Tribal Council. Later on, a tribe switch put Tyson in a tribe with fellow former Galang members Gervase Peterson and Aras Baskauskas, as well as old Tadhana members Hayden Moss, Ciera Eastin, and Caleb Bankston. Using the clues to the hidden immunity idol's location, given to him verbally by Moss and Bankston, Tyson found the first idol by himself and kept it a secret. Tyson rallied everyone except Aras together, under the common bond of having their loved ones voted out already. At the merge the five players joined with Monica Culpepper and Ciera's mom, Laura Morett, who returned from Redemption Island, to take out Aras, Aras's brother Vytas, and Tina Wesson. From here, Tyson began looking further past this alliance of seven, orchestrating the re-sending of Morett to Redemption Island and voting out Bankston, who was conspiring to blindside him. It was in this tribal council that Tyson used his idol, even though no votes were cast against him and Bankston still received the majority of votes. With the sudden revelation that he had the idol all along, Tyson began facing rebellion among his alliance from Moss and Eastin, who continuously appealed to Culpepper to switch her vote and go with them against Tyson and Peterson. However, Tyson maintained control of Peterson and Culpepper, and even found the idol a second time after utilizing the clue that Eastin was given. He later won the final two immunity challenges and, in the penultimate tribal council, gave his second idol to Peterson and negated the votes cast against him, which sent Eastin to the jury. Tyson won the final immunity challenge, thus guaranteeing him a spot in the final three, alongside Peterson and Culpepper. Both Peterson and Culpepper were widely viewed by the jury as riding Tyson's coattails, letting him make all the decisions and doing little to play their own game, with Culpepper especially being criticized for failing to make a big blindside move against Tyson and Peterson, even though she had numerous chances to do so. Though Tyson was responsible for most of the jury members' eliminations, his method of playing the game was praised, and he and was voted the $1 million winner, receiving 7 of the 8 jury votes (with Culpepper receiving only the vote of Vytas).

Survivor stats

References

External links