Finalists Feel Devastated Ahead of Race Finale

draws to a close on Thursday night with an epic final leg in Mongolia.

But one of the four final teams have admitted it would take a miracle for them to win the show after a devastating penultimate leg.

Margo Oakley and her brother-in-law Mark Blythen have proved themselves as fan favourites on the show, but suffered a disastrous leg last week which saw them at risk of having to withdraw from the race.

The latest episode ended in a cliffhanger with the pair, who are racing in memory of Mark's late wife and Margo's late sister, Julia, realising they were hours behind their competitors and still had a long journey to the penultimate checkpoint.

They go into the final episode with a dwindling budget and have admitted in a pre-finale interview that they were 'devastated' to have found themselves at such a disadvantage so close to the finish line.

Margo said: 'When we realised we'd fallen behind this last leg, we were devastated. Because we were delayed and could not go on that night, we know we have fallen so far behind, and it almost feels like the chances of winning are disappearing.'

She added: 'We feel sad, and heavy, and we just want to be able to finish the race, but we know it's going to cost us money which we don't have lots of, but we will pull together as a team, and there is so much power in that.'

The positive to come out of the seventh leg has been the deepening of their friendship, Mark explained.  

'Personally, I think that particular leg, leg seven, just being in that situation together, and having to pull together and work together, we just became very close friends,' he said.

'I think we have quite a deep friendship now from all we have been through together and I have a different sort of perspective on Margo now.'

He admitted though that the pair would be 'shocked if we win'.

Margo and Mark are competing against friends Jo Diop and Kush Burman, siblings Katie and Harrison Devine and father and daughter Molly and Andrew Clifford for the £20,000 prize money.

After travelling 12,000km from Sicily to Northern Mongolia, the other teams are busy analysing their competition.

Andrew and Molly have predicted that Jo and Kush will be their biggest competition, explaining 'they have been beside us so much, and going into the last leg, we are of course the top two teams.'

'We’re quite ahead of Katie & Harrison and Mark & Margo and things would need to go really bad for it not to be one of us two teams, I think. But in this race, anything can happen.'

Kush and Jo agreed saying 'we came into the race as the underdogs, but Andrew and Molly, they’ve not won a leg yet and they’ve climbed the leaderboard and are now second, which brings that nervousness of them actually being the underdogs and taking over.'

Siblings Katie and Harrison meanwhile are focused on their own race, with Katie sweetly explaining how she wants to win for her brother.

'I know how hard he's worked to get us both to the final checkpoint. I have just loved the whole experience, and I would be happy to just get to the final checkpoint, but I want to win for Harrison, because he deserves that,' she said. 

Race Across the World's finale airs on Thursday (21 May) at 9pm on BBC One and iPlayer.