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Thursday, Jun. 12, 2008

Los Osos twins will compete on NBC's 'American Gladiators'

The sisters will compete on ‘American Gladiators,’ the NBC series featuring extreme athletic events

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Twins Clinessa Burch and Lillian Thomasson live together, hang out together and work together.

But when it comes to competing, the sporty sisters usually avoid going head to head.

“We can play against other people and be good sports,” Thomasson said. “But when we play against each other, we just get nasty.”

So when the two were invited to compete against each other on the TV show “American Gladiators,” an interesting question arose: Would they get caught up in sibling rivalry, or would they bond against the buffed-up gladiators?

The 27-year-old Los Osos women will appear on the NBC show Monday night. And because they are competing against each other, one will advance to the following week.

The show features amateur athletes competing against each other and the show’s own “gladiators” in contests of physical strength and endurance. Games such as the Joust, the Wall and Hang Tough combine sport and theater as the super-sized gladiators try to prevent contestants from achieving their goals.

The appeal of the show, said executive producer David Hurwitz, is that viewers can often relate to the contestants, who are athletic but nowhere near as muscled as the rock-solid gladiators.

“The viewers get to live vicariously through those contestants,” Hurwitz said.

That’s what Burch did as she watched the show with her husband, Aaron, one night.

“We were sitting here watching it, and I’m thinking, ‘Oh yeah. I could do that!’ And he’s like, ‘You should try out.’ And I’m like, ‘Yeah, I should try out!’ And I looked on the Internet, and there was an open call two weeks later.”

Intense audition

The audition process was intense, with physical and psychological tests, the latter posing questions such as: “Do you have evil thoughts?”

The twins also had to send in a video of themselves doing interesting things. Their video included Thomasson playing violin (she’s a member of the band Cuesta Ridge, which will perform at San Luis Obispo’s Concerts in the Plaza this summer), and both women riding Harleys and playing basketball.

As potential contestants, the twins had much appeal: They’re attractive, athletic and smart (both graduated from Cal Poly—Burch with a degree in industrial technology, Thomasson with a degree in agricultural science).

And, yes, they’re twins. The show likes to pick contestants who have interesting stories, said Hurwitz, who was the executive producer of NBC’s reality competition show “Fear Factor.”

So on “Gladiators,” there’s the Iraq war veteran with shrapnel in his body, the amputee and the guy who lost 100 pounds.

Thomasson and Burch were interesting, Hurwitz said, because they had such a bond as fraternal twins.

“It’s an interesting dynamic knowing that only one can move on,” he said.

The two usually compete on the same side. At San Luis Obispo High School, they both ran track and played basketball on the same team. And as they prepared for the show, they worked out together, running up and down the dunes at Montaña de Oro.

As twins, they said, they constantly push each other to go that extra mile.

“She’s my workout buddy,” Thomasson said.

While the show had hoped for a twin grudge match, the siblings were characteristically supportive.

“They really wanted us to try to talk trash against each other,” Thomasson said. “They’re like, ‘So, Lillian, would you ever be willing to say that you’d smash your sister to the ground?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ ”

Once they were accepted, they had two weeks’ notice before taping began at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena.

Entering the arena

The shows are taped over a period of days, and which events a contestant will participate in is a mystery.

“They pick you up in the morning, take you to the sports arena, and they don’t tell you what you’re going to do or when you’re going to do it,” Burch said. “All day you’re sitting in this little room with so much anxiety.”

When they entered the arena, Burch said, everything was bigger than it looked on TV.

“It’s huge,” she said. “It does take your breath away —all the lights and cameras. It’s exciting, but it’s also intimidating.”

The gladiators were also intimidating, the twins said. They competed against gladiators such as Crush, Hellga, Steel and Phoenix. “Crush is the number one,

undefeated women’s mixed martial arts fighter,” Thomasson said. “She just had another fight, and I watched it and was like, ‘Wow, that lady is really tough — and I went against her!’ ”

On the show, the gladiators take the work seriously. And a few times, they tried to psyche the twins out, saying things such as, “Are you ready for this?” and “I’m going to wipe that smile off your face!”

Not everyone was trash talking, though. Co-host Hulk Hogan told the twins they were pleasant on the eyes.

The twins competed in several events, including the Pyramid, Rocketball and the Wall. In the Pyramid, contestants try to scale a padded pyramid protected by gladiators. Rocketball features the contestants shooting their bodies high into the air in an extreme basketball game. And the Wall features gladiators chasing down contestants on a rock-climbing wall.

At the taping, an audience of 1,200 watches in the arena.

“The whole audience, they kind of make you feel like a movie star,” Thomasson said. “They know you by name and cheer you on.”

Even though they were competing against each other for a potential $100,000 prize, the twins rooted for each other.

“In a couple of events they tie,” Hurwitz said, “and they’re happy they tie.”

After Monday’s show, the twins will be local celebrities. But after her stint on national television, Burch said, she’s happy to be back in Los Osos, where she and her sister work for Burch Concrete Solutions, a decorative concrete business she co-owns with her husband.

“I always thought I was tough and hard-core,” she said. “But after getting a little older, it turns out I kind of like my life the way it is. I was not made to be a movie star.”