Sparks’ Lisa Leslie is part of final four in Superstars on Tuesday night
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With ‘The Superstars’ reality series entering its fifth week (airing at 8 tonight on ABC), Sparks center Lisa Leslie and French actor-singer David Charvet are among the four contestants still competing.
But it hasn’t been easy. In the second week, Leslie lost her first teammate, actor Dan Cortese, to a hamstring injury and then teamed with Charvet, a French actor and singer. In the third week, Leslie struggled in an event most would assume she’d easily excel in -- basketball. And in the fourth week, Leslie and Charvet knocked a lot of pins down in bowling but not enough for spares and strikes.
Before Leslie reflects on last week, here’s a sneak preview of tonight’s episode. It features a watercraft race, archery and a 36-foot climbing wall:
On the bowling event
‘I was fine until they said, ‘Try to throw strikes.’ Then I got a gutter ball. If they say, ‘Just bowl,’ I can get spares all day. I’m good. I can knock down seven, eight, pick up a spare.’
On David Charvet’s constant apologies for his bowling performance and for crossing the line.
‘He was apologizing more because he was the one who was more experienced in bowling than I was. He began with giving me pointers and saying, ‘Get it right down the middle and helping me with my hand and how to hold it. I was like, ‘Oh OK.’ But ... I’m left handed. I have to play all these sports right handed because who has a left-handed bowling ball.’
‘I’m just saying growing up, with sports in general, very seldom do you have a left-handed glove. I have to play the ball with the right hand. Pretty much every sport that I do I usually do with my right hand except for tennis. I can play tennis with my left hand because you can just put the racket over there. But other sports that require you to need something special, I usually never had it, like golfing. Who has left-handed clubs for someone like me that was tall. Bowling is one of those sports where I do it with my right hand, but if I had a choice, I probably would’ve learned to do it with my left hand and do it a little bit better. I follow whatever they teach me. I learned everything with my right hand.’
On Leslie’s golf game
‘Golf is such a subjective subject. It’s fair, but I have no idea about my score or my handicap. But I can hang with some folks. Nine holes, I’m good. But I can’t stay focused enough for 18. Nine holes, I’m all right. Then my mind stops. We still have another nine to go and I can’t stay focused long enough.’
On her accurate prediction that some bowlers will cross the line
‘I said it because we were already about to get eliminated, so I was just like, ‘Anything can happen. Someone can cross the line.’ From my angle, Max [Ukrainian dancer Maksim Chmerkovskiy] really looked like they crossed the line. David was clearly on the line.’
On the challenges of the obstacle course
‘The fact that me being 6’5” and it’s 9 or 10 o’clock at night, it’s very difficult to get your body up and going. It’s fine when you do an early event. I didn’t win and I stunk at that. But then you have to be really focused and on, and I don’t want to go home. That’s kind of my main thing. When you get to the obstacle course, you don’t want to go home. You want to be at your best.’
‘Then you bring in this little beam and of course I wear size 13 shoes. I’m on this little beam and there’s little girls and their feet are crossing. The beam didn’t help me. I can get to the rope part fast and go up and down. That wasn’t a problem. You bust through this wall and you have to go really low to get under it. That was another thing. There’s not enough space to really sprint because something is coming up. Then you have the ropes. It’s like, dude, my feet can fit through each piece of the rope. It can kind of fit through but it can’t come out.’
‘Rolling was definitely the technique. It took a while for us to get that only because the bar is about 6 feet so when you first jump in, because I was strong enough to push myself up I would end up going head first so my foot was taking me forward as opposed to me flipping, tucking and rolling to the side.’
-- Mark Medina