The newest ‘Champs vs. Stars’ victors won by the skin of their teeth, and they weren’t the first

Let’s do away with diplomacy for a second: The Champs blew The Stars out of the water on Champs vs. Stars Season 2, and won every single mission along the way. It was decisive. It was unarguable. It wasn’t even close.

As for Season 3? Well, that turned out to be a bit of a different story.

On tonight’s finale, in which Teams CT/Tony, Casper/Louise and Wes/Booby squared off for the grand prize, the leaders changed as frequently as the weather in New England. As Mike “The Miz” Mizanin pointed out, it was the closest finale the franchise had seen — each team spent at least one leg in first, each spent at least a bit of time in second and each spent at least some of the race trailing the others in third.

But after all of the “Bankroll” running, untangling and — in Casper’s case — leisurely doughnut-eating — CT and Tony officially won the whole enchilada, a particularly stunning victory considering CT injured his back early in the game and was nearly forced to withdraw.

“There was no way I was gonna quit, no matter how bad the conditions,” CT said. “No matter how bad you feel, you’ve gotta keep moving forward, because sooner or later, you’re gonna catch a break. And we caught one. We won.”

Still, CT and Tony weren’t the first team to come from behind to claim victory, or win by a hair. Check out the closest Challenge finale contests below, and if there’s one that we missed, be sure to share it in the comments!