Survivor NZ: Shannon on her 'cutthroat strategy' and 'big breakdown'

Survivor NZ: Shannon talks her ‘cutthroat strategy’ and ‘big breakdown’

The latest contestant to be eliminated from Survivor New Zealand tells us why she was "so disappointed" at her shock exit, and what she would have done differently.

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After a rough couple of weeks on Survivor New Zealand, zookeeper Shannon Quinn’s hopes of becoming the first ever Kiwi sole Survivor were dashed in last night’s Redemption Island three-way battle.

Facing off against Michael Sparrow and Jak Thomas, the Cantabrian was the first to break in an endurance challenge that saw all three fighting to keep their buckets of water suspended overhead – but Shannon’s was the first to come crashing down, sending her out of the game and making her the third member of the jury.

Speaking to Now To Love, the 24-year-old revealed that after so long in the game, she didn’t have the mental strength to make it to the end of the challenge.

“That’s why I was so, so disappointed in myself because I know that I physically could have lasted so much longer – but mentally, I just wasn’t quite there that day. I wasn’t as mentally strong as I had been in other challenges,” she said.

Shannon also admitted to having been “weakened” by her emotional breakdown earlier in the game, which came after she played a part in sending former tribe-mates Mike, Lee and Sala to Redemption Island.

While her power plays eliminated some of the game’s strongest competitors, they came at a cost, with some of her fellow contestants seeing as her as ‘untrustworthy’ after her double-crossing moves.

Having based her “cutthroat strategy” on what she had seen take place on the American seasons of Survivor, Shannon tells us now that she would approach some of those decisions differently.

“I think potentially, if I hadn’t cracked and had my little breakdown, I possibly could have got to the end,” Shannon revealed. “But at the same time, I should have thought about the fact that New Zealanders aren’t like Americans.

“Quite often on [the American Survivor] people play that sort of strategy and they actually are respected by the other players. Whereas New Zealanders, I think, really don’t respect that sort of game play – so I didn’t really factor that part in. I might have gone for a different approach if I had thought about it,” she said.