Last Woman Standing BBC3

I HADN'T taken much notice of Last Woman Standing until this week, believing it to be yet another show about binge drinking.

However, it turns out to be about five female athletes who've accepted the "challenge of a lifetime" – to travel the world and compete against the most remote tribes on earth on their own turf". There were originally six athletes but sadly one was eaten by Amazonian cannibals after losing a game of Scrabble.

The five are European boxing champion Lesley, watersports junkie Anna, personal trainer Alex, rugby player Joni, and endurance expert Natalie, the BBC having sadly missed the chance to use Girls Aloud, creating bonhomie with licence fee payers by sending Cheryl Cole over a remote African waterfall in a barrel.

"Over the past five months," we were told, "they've been hurled into a world of sport and ritual unlike anything they've ever encountered."

This week the women were up against the Tarahumara of northern Mexico whose extraordinary lung capacity and stamina makes them some of the best endurance female athletes in the world, right up there with Betty Stove.

In a special race known as the Arihueta, these women "run high altitude marathons on thin air in sandals made from old tyres while throwing a hoop ahead of them with a stick". Look out for the sport making its Olympic debut at London 2012.

The girls would have to stay with a tribal family for a few days while they learned the ropes of the Arihueta. Chief Rosa was one of those putting up a visitor. "The girls are all tall and strange looking," she reported. I remember thinking something similar when I went to a barn dance the other side of Buxton.

The girls weren't too enamoured by conditions. "There are scorpions everywhere," moaned one.

In a race with about as much excitement as an abandoned game of Ludo, Anna was the first to cross the line, meaning she was crowned series winner.

"It feels absolutely fantastic to be the last woman standing," she said. "It's just been the most fantastic experience."

You need to get out more love.