Celebrity Treasure Island’s giant slayer has finally been slain - and he's explained why he didn't play the advantage card that he still had up his sleeve.
After knocking out some of the competition’s biggest names, TVNZ sports reporter Zion Dayal’s impressive run on the show came to an end in last night’s episode after a tense elimination battle.
In a bid to eliminate one of the game’s strongest remaining players, Shortland Street actor Ria Vandervis sent Dayal into the arena to face social media star Louis Davies in a balancing challenge.
The pair were required to steady a ball on top of a long pole, with extra sections added every two minutes to make it increasingly unstable.
Despite battling through several late wobbles, Dayal eventually lost his balance and dropped the ball, sending him home from the competition.
Dayal described the elimination as “gutting”, but admitted he almost never made it onto the island at all.
“I actually turned it down at first,” he told 1News. “I didn’t consider myself a celebrity.”
“But then I thought, I can sit there and tell people I got asked to do it, or actually just go and do it.”
The underdog quickly became the game's quiet assassin during challenges — sending home several top names including rugby star Portia Woodman-Wickliffe, actor Ben Barrington and Vinnie Bennett.
By the end of his run, he'd picked up the nickname The Giant Slayer.
“I didn’t give myself that name,” Dayal laughed. “Louis said it once and then it just stuck.”
He confessed even he was surprised by how far he had gone in the game.
"I'm quite a relaxed person, and you've got to be confident to go on and win those challenges," he said.
"When you do have a little bit of confidence, you can go on and surprise yourself. Which I definitely did."
'I didn't feel like I deserved to be there'
Last night's elimination battle could have looked very different.
The sports reporter still held an advantage card that could have saved him from elimination but instead chose not to use it, a decision he said came down to “being honest and true to myself".
"I had to use the card by day 11 of the competition, and we were on day 10 when I got knocked out," he said.
"I said I was only going to use the card on day 11, and I stayed true to that. Louis and I said that we would both give it our all, and go out fair and square," he said.
Dayal admitted he initially felt out of place among the star-studded celebrity cast, describing himself as “a bit of a fraud” at the beginning of the competition.
“I work in news, where the story is always about someone else,” he said. “I didn’t really feel like I deserved to be there. But by the end of it, I realised I did.”
He said forming a close bond with his "incredible" castmates quickly helped ease those doubts.
"You get so close to people so quickly. You've got no phones, you're living in these huts, so you just talk all the time and you get to know everyone's story. It's actually quite special."
Could a return for redemption be on the cards?
“100%,” he laughed.
Be warned, castaways — the giant slayer may not be done just yet.
Celebrity Treasure Island airs Monday to Wednesday at 7.30pm on TVNZ2 and TVNZ+.
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