CBS announced the 11 returning teams for the next season of The Amazing Race on Tuesday morning, a group that includes only a single former winner: Joyce and Uchenna Agu, who took the million dollars home after Season 7. Among the interesting twists is the mixed team of Eric Sanchez and Danielle “Dee” Turner. Although they competed on separate teams in Season 9 (he finished second, while she was in seventh), they met and have been dating since soon after. The show debuts Feb. 18 at 8 p.m. ET.

How did Race challenge contestants who knew the drill? “We had to throw them curveball after curveball, because they all thought they knew what we were doing again,” Van Munster says. So the 45,000-mile, 28-day race, which ended Dec. 19, sent them “from extreme cold to extreme heat,” a desert in northern Chile to “borderline South Pole” in Antarctica. Despite producers’ all-star “reservations,” Van Munster says the season resulted in “a lot of friction right off the bat. … I’m confident we laid something on the table that will be very unexpected, and story-wise, there were plenty of fireworks.” 

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