Tony Vlachos is an American police officer known as the winner of Survivor: Cagayan, the 2014 season of the long-running reality TV competition series Survivor.

Personal life[edit]

Tony Vlachos was born on September 10, 1973, the son of Greek parents who emigrated from Greece. He grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey, idolizing law enforcement officers, and dreamed of one day becoming one. He graduated high school in 1992, and spent several years working in various different jobs while "partying" with his friends and working on his automobiles. He states that despite this recreational period in his life, he did not smoke, drink alcohol or do drugs.^[1]

He began bodybuilding when he was 20, an activity with which he says he was "obsessed". He began working out in his basement with plastic weights filled with sand, and in about a year's time, graduated to iron weights.^[1]

In 2000 Vlachos became a Jersey City police officer.^[1][2] On February 5, 2014, he saved a 69-year-old man who had a massive heart attack on his lawn in nine inches of snow.^[3]

In 2007, Vlachos began dating a fellow police officer named Marissa. They dated for approximately three years before he proposed to her on July 24, 2010. They married in August 2012, and their daughter, Anastasia Marie, was born on February 16, 2013, five months before Vlachos left to film Survivor: Cagayan. Two months after arriving home, Vlachos and Marissa discovered she was two months pregnant with their second child, a son they named Constantine, who was born in June 2014.^[1]

Survivor: Cagayan[edit]

Vlachos was cast on the 28th season of the CBS reality television show Survivor. The theme of the season was Brawn vs. Brains vs. Beauty. Vlachos was cast as a "brawn" and started out on the Aparri tribe. Before the first tribal swap, Aparri dominated the immunity challenges and did not go to tribal council. During this time, Vlachos formed an alliance, dubbed "Cops-R-Us", with fellow police officer Sarah Lacina. Despite this alliance, Vlachos lied to Lacina about his profession, claiming he was a construction worker. Vlachos also became close with Trish Hegarty, and was wary of the popularity of former NBA All-Star Cliff Robinson. Vlachos was able to find the Aparri tribe's hidden immunity idol without any clues.

With 14 contestants remaining in the game, the three tribes were dissolved into two. The entire Aparri tribe, sans Lacina, was placed on the Solana tribe, along with "beauty" tribe members LJ McKanas and Jefra Bland. Solana lost the immunity challenge to Aparri, sending Vlachos to tribal council for the first time in the game. Although it would have been easy for old "brawn" members to vote off either LJ or Jefra, Hegarty bonded with McKanas and wanted to target Robinson. Vlachos, as the swing vote, chose to eliminate Cliff, which also caused one of Cliff's followers, Lindsey Ogle, to quit. With 11 contestants left, the two tribes formed the merged tribe, Solarrion. Vlachos' alliance of five (Vlachos, Hegarty, Yung "Woo" Hwang, McKanas, and Bland) was, at first, at a disadvantage to the six-member alliance of the old Aparri tribe (Kassandra "Kass" McQuillen, Spencer Bledsoe, Latasha "Tasha" Fox, Jeremiah Wood, Morgan McLeod, and Lacina). However, McQuillen flipped on her six-member alliance, giving Vlachos' alliance the number advantage and allowing them to eliminate Lacina. Vlachos' alliance then alternated between taking out the remaining members of the opposing alliance (McLeod, Wood, Fox, and Bledsoe), and then switching over to blindside one of Vlachos' own allies whom he perceived as threats (McKanas, Bland, and Hegarty).

After making it to the final 3, Woo won the challenge and Vlachos had to convince Woo to take him to the final 2 rather than McQuillen. Vlachos argued that, in order for Woo to maintain the integrity he claimed to play with, he needed to take his long-time ally and more worthy opponent with him. Woo ultimately agreed and voted out McQuillen, allowing Vlachos to advance to the final 2. At the final tribal council, Vlachos received much criticism from the jury members (especially Hegarty) for his aggressive gameplay and constantly breaking his promises, while Woo was criticized for riding Vlachos' coattails, and choosing to take him to the end over McQuillen. However, after Bledsoe gave a long speech in favor of Vlachos, the jury ultimately chose him as the winner with 8 of the 9 jury votes (while only Fox voted for Woo to win), thus tying with Rob Mariano's win in Survivor: Redemption Island for the largest non-unanimous landslide in Survivor history.

Aftermath[edit]

After his win, Aaron W. Fraser, a New Jersey congressional candidate, tried to get Vlachos fired from his job for showing himself to be a "trickster, liar, backstabber and dealer" on the program, although the effort ultimately failed.^[4]

In the official issue of CBS Watch, commemorating the 15th anniversary of Survivor, Vlachos was voted by viewers as the 8th greatest player in Survivor history.^[5] He was the higher-ranking contestant out of the only two on the list to have competed only once, ranking one spot ahead of the other one-time contestant, Yul Kwon of Survivor: Cook Islands. In a 2015 interview, host Jeff Probst listed Vlachos as one of his top 10 favorite Survivor winners ever, and one of his top 6 favorite male winners.^[6]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• "Tony Vlachos". Survivor: Cagayan. CBS.
• Longeretta, Emily (May 21, 2014). "'Survivor: Cagayan' Recap: (Spoiler) Wins It All After Dramatic Finale". Hollywood Life.