‘The Challenge: All Stars’ Recap: 2 Veteran Players Are Sent Home in Intense Double Elimination

Three players’ journeys came to an end on the Wednesday, April 17, episode of The Challenge: All Stars. A double elimination sent one male and one female player home, while another competitor chose to leave after getting a troubling phone call.

Tony Raines announced his decision to depart The Challenge at the beginning of the episode. He got a phone call from his brother and said he had family issues to deal with back at home. While he didn’t specify what happened, he did promise that he’d “be back” on another season in the future. 

Since Tony, 35, was Nicole Zanatta’s closest ally in the house, she was feeling lost after his departure. In a shocking turn of events, she sought comfort in her ex Laurel Stucky. The women began mending their strained relationship.

Syrus Yarbrough came in to replace Tony before the next daily challenge, which required the players to split up into pairs and solve a puzzle with large domino pieces. Averey Tressler and Adam Larson won the challenge. Adam, 45, had previously earned one of the six stars this season, which secured him a spot in the final challenge … if he held onto it. Luckily, his star was safe this week because of the win.

Host T.J. Lavin revealed that there would be a double elimination, which meant that a male and female player were going home. The duos who finished the challenge in the middle of the pack had to nominate two men and two women from those at the bottom of the pack to go into elimination. 

The players up for elimination were Syrus, 52, Leroy Garrett, Derek Chavez, Kefla Hare, Brad Fiorenza, Rachel Robinson, Veronica Portillo, Ayanna Mackins and Flora Alekseyeva. Immediately after the challenge ended, Ayanna, 45, started floating around the idea of sending Leroy into elimination to split up the alliance between him and his fiancée, Kam Williams.

Kam, 29, caught wind of Ayanna’s plans and confronted her. Ayanna denied wanting to target the couple and blew up over the accusations, especially since Kam wouldn’t reveal who spilled the beans about the plan. Now, the target was on Ayanna heading into nominations. 

For the men, Syrus and Kefla, 49, were nominated. They both accepted their fate and prepared to go against each other, despite their longtime friendship. When it came to the women, the nominees were Ayanna and Rachel, 41, whom the players thought had the best chance of beating Ayanna.

Kefla defeated Syrus in the endurance elimination challenge. As the winner, Kefla had the opportunity to steal one of the two remaining stars from Brad, 43, or Steve Meinke (since Adam’s was safe). He chose Brad’s. Meanwhile, Rachel already had a star, so she could either take one of the other two ladies’ stars from Cara Maria Sorbello or Tina Barta and give it to someone else, or nab Steve’s star and give it to a male player of her choice.

Even though Tina, 42, was one of Rachel’s allies and friends, the fitness guru chose to take her star and gave it to the third member of their trio, Veronica, 46. Tina’s star was a bit of a fluke, as she only earned it from winning a previous elimination by default when Janelle Casanave quit. She took Rachel’s decision in stride.

With Ayanna and Syrus eliminated, only 20 players remain. New episodes of The Challenge: All Stars drop on Paramount+ Wednesdays at 3 a.m. ET.