A BROTHER and sister who competed in BBC’s Race Across the World say they have been brought closer together through their experience.

The Mukherjee siblings – Betty, a 25-year-old social media and events manager for a gym in Silsden, and James, a 21-year-old sales consultant – took part in the latest series.

The challenge saw them travel from northernmost Japan to the Indonesian island of Lombok in east Asia without flights or phones.

Just 24 hours and 34 minutes behind the winners, Betty and James finished in third place.

Reflecting on their travels, Betty said: “I think we’ve learned how to communicate better, and we now both have an extra person to lean on.”

Across the series, the four partnerships were pushed to their mental and physical limits as they travelled 15,000km over 50 days, crossing six seas and eight borders.

Betty and James – who admitted to being barely in touch as adults – wanted to share the experience of a lifetime, and by the end of the programme had grown closer.

It was an emotional time for the siblings as Betty opened up about her diagnosis of Mayer Rokitansky Küster Hauser (MRKH) syndrome.

MRKH affects one in every 5,000 women, according to the NHS.

Also known as Rokitansky syndrome, MRKH is a rare congenital disorder that mainly affects the reproductive system.

It could mean women are either born without a vagina and uterus, or the vagina and uterus fail to develop fully.

“As a young woman you’re kind of told ‘you’re going to marry, you’re going to have a family’,” she said in the penultimate episode of Race Across the World.

“From a young age, when that’s taken away from you, it does put doubts in your mind and doubts in your purpose as a person.”

Betty was diagnosed with MRKH shortly after turning 16.

She doesn’t have a uterus or womb and only has one kidney as a result of her condition.

On the show, Betty told her brother: “My condition, I do believe it has made me have this mindset of being negative and not really liking the person I am.

“Me and you have never had a conversation about it. It’s made me develop a lot of the negative attributes I have, overthinking, wanting to feel like I’m in control. I felt like at 16 something was taken away from me that I couldn’t control.”