It’s been a season filled with blindsides, betrayals and big moves, and after weeks of putting the castaways to the ultimate test, Australian Survivor has finally crowned its winner for 2021.
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Taking home the winning title and $500,000 in prize money is none other than Hayley Leake, who has walked away as the season eight Sole Survivor.
It was an emotional episode but the pain researcher celebrated her win with her partner and her best friend in an epic finale, after she faced off against George Mladenov in front of the jury.
“Playing Survivor was a childhood dream that I never thought was possible. I have always been that person, sitting on the couch at home, yelling to the players through the TV to make a move. It is surreal that now I am the Sole Survivor!” Hayley wrote on Instagram after her win.
There’s no doubt that the win was well and truly deserved, after Hayley and the rest of the castaways gave it their absolute all in the brutal challenges and mind games to get through to the very end.
Throughout the season, we saw 24 of the strongest and most strategic players battle it out, until there were only three left in the game.
With Hayley, George, and second runner-up Flick Palmateer all fighting to come out on top, it was anyone’s game, and even more so when it narrowed down to just Hayley and George as the final two.
Ahead of the finale there was already a clear winner in sight, with both TAB and Sportsbet having tipped Hayley as the one to take the 2021 Survivor crown with odds at 1.05 and 1.20, respectively.
The odds also pegged the same name for second place, with Sportsbet placing George in the position at 6.00, and TAB placing him in second place at 7.00.
Meanwhile, Sportsbet had Flick in third place at 10.00, and TAB placed her in the spot at 9.00.
This season, the castaways went head-to-head in the harsh Australian outback, where in an exclusive chat with New Idea, host Jonathan LaPaglia told us that filming in the Australian outback was much tougher than the seasons that took place in Fiji.
“Temperature, for one thing, it was over 40 degrees every day, but at the end of the season it kind of switched, and during the night they had to deal with cold temperatures like 6-7 degrees every day,” he said.
“It’s a double-edged sword – it’s great to be in Australia, it’s great to showcase what Australia has, and we’re also giving back to the local economy. But, they were tough conditions. I mean the heat, and distances between locations – we were travelling 3-4 hours every day on unpaved road,” he said.
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