Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers spotlight: Meet Olympic swimmer Katrina Radke
For a little more on that, let’s dive into the latest entry in our ongoing castaway spotlight series!
Age – 46.
Location – Excelsior, Minnesota. Does anyone else yell “excelsior” and think of Stan Lee? For some reason, we have vivid memories of his Who Wants to Be a Superhero? reality series, but we digress. The important thing here is that she’s from a small town.
Bio – She was an Olympian during the 1988 games, and she swam for the US national team many years around that period. She’s since become deeply into sports psychology and she still fancies herself as very tough and very competitive. She’s very much into non-violent conflict resolution and trying to find ways to solve problems. It’s probably for these reasons more than others that she is a part of the Heroes tribe this season.
Past Survivor comparison – She almost feels like the love child of Denise Stapley, Sylvia from Survivor: Fiji, and Rupert all rolled into one person. She is very intelligent, but also has a big personality and is probably going to make it clear to everyone around her how she can be an asset to the team.
Strengths – She’s obviously going to be great in swimming tasks, and we don’t think that she should shy away from disclosing that given that it could end up being an asset; she’s one of the older contestants out there this season, and we saw with Crystal Cox that you can be an Olympian and still suck at challenges. Her insight into the competitive mind and how athletes think is probably going to be more useful to her than almost anything else out there.
Weaknesses – We do wonder if she’s going to talk too much, or try a little too hard to reinforce her position on things. she feels very aggressive, and while that can be good when it comes to alliance-building, it’s very hard to play the game of Survivor when you are in a constant state of power. We’ve seen it with many an alpha male and an alpha female over the past several years
Pre-show prediction – If we wanted a contestant this season to give us a pep talk, it’s probably Katrina given that she seems like she’d be a great coach and a sense of encouragement. In the game, she could go far just on the basis of her determination. Unfortunately for her, our concern is just that her leadership style will clash with some other people early and that could get her in trouble. It’s always hard to be super-confident in people who seem to have such a commanding presence going into the game.
How well do you think that Katrina Radke is going to do on Survivor: Heroes vs. Healers vs. Hustlers? Let us know in the comments below!
Also, click here to see some of our other CarterMatt spotlights on this season. You can get more between now and the start of the season by also visiting our Facebook. (Photo: CBS.)