The bodybuilders join three other students on 'Sandblast' Mr. and Ms. Penn will be getting physical once again tonight at 8 p.m. But this time, millions of people will be watching. Penn's most physically fit duo will make its national television debut tonight as the two dunk balls into 13-foot baskets, fly down zip-lines and become human bowling balls on MTV's ultra-physical game show, Sandblast. Wharton junior Craig Green and College junior Lorie Roth won their titles at Penn's annual bodybuilding contest in January. They were joined by College juniors J. J. Cramer and Mike Cudzil, and 1995 College graduate Marta Kohenska at Disney World for the filming of the show in late June and will now view the results of their toil over the next few weeks. The students were chosen after an hour-long tryout on Hill Field in April. Contestants had to do sprints, throw and catch footballs, do shoulder rolls and try to do as many push-ups as they could in 30 seconds -- Green did 62 and Roth did 26. Cramer said the casting agents from MTV were not only looking for physically fit contestants, but for people with charisma as well. Two thousand students in five cities participated in the hour-long tryout. Roth estimated that about 300 University students tried out. Although the head of the show told contestants they would be notified of their acceptance in May, Roth and Green didn't find out until June. "When we did find out, it was really exciting," Green said. "We were totally convinced that we didn't make the show." Cramer, a member of the men's tennis team, said he was very anxious to do the show, but his family was extremely concerned about the potential for injury. "My whole family is worried about my tennis as well as myself -- especially when they heard about the other injuries that happened to people on the show," he said. The contestants were flown on an all-expenses-paid trip to Disney World, where the show was filmed. They received three meals a day, a $50 stipend and free passes to all of the Disney theme parks. Before they could compete on the show, participants underwent three difficult days of training. Green and Roth said they were allowed to try the different events twice -- enough to become familiar with them, but not enough to master them. "The events aren't as easy as they look," Cramer said. "I gained a lot of respect for people who had done the show in the past. Even the easy events weren't as easy when you tried them." The participants said that the show was very exciting to film, but also very overwhelming and even scary. "When you watch on television, you say, 'No big deal, I can do that,' " Roth said. "And when you get there everything is so much bigger." "When we went through it the first time, I was petrified," Green added. Roth and Green competed against a team they had trained with and thought they would have no problem beating. But by the last round, they had lost every event except the basketball competition, "Dunk It." In the final competition, the "Crash Course," the pair beat the competition by almost 10 seconds and both were overtaken with joy. They then had their bubble burst. "We were so happy, throwing sand around, and then five seconds later they told us that we were disqualified," Green said. "It was one of the biggest shockers of my life." The team was disqualified because during the Crash Course, Green had gone through the wrong gate while riding a personal watercraft. That created a potential safety hazard. The team said they were upset but realized that the game was created for enjoyment, not solely competition. Cramer and Kohenska had better luck. They won their first round and moved on to the finals. But in the fourth event of the finals, Cramer realized his parents' fears and ruptured his ear drum in an event called "Hydropain," in which one player drives a personal watercraft dragging a member of the opposite team. He was taken to the hospital and his partner was matched up with someone else in a refilm the show later that day. The participants said the time they spent on the set was the some best of their summers. They had fun going out at night with other competitors and the attention they got from the television crews. The episode of Sandblast will be aired four times this weekend: Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 10 a.m. and at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday at 8:30 a.m.
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