American Ninja Warrior is embracing the women who compete on the show — and it paid off in the All Stars special from last night.
American Ninja Warrior started out as a mostly male enterprise. Indeed, a female competitor, Jessie Graff, didn’t actually finish the first stage of the national finals course until this past season. (You may know her better for her Wonder Woman costume from the Los Angeles round.)
However, more and more women are qualifying and competing. In fact, there were enough of them for a woman to compete in almost every single All Stars competition from last night’s special.
First up came the team competition. Graff competed on Team Kristine Leahy alongside Flip Rodriguez and Nicholas Coolridge. However, both Team Matt Iseman and Team Akbar Gbajabiamila each also had a woman, with Jesse “Flex” Labreck and Meagan Martin running parts of each course for their respective teams.
Here’s Jessie Graff running the anchor leg on the first round of the team competition, and making things look just as easy as her teammates did.
Martin and Labreck became the first women to finish the Wave Runner. It’s a dastardly obstacle that not even Graff finished during her Stage 2 run at last year’s finals. However, Team Kristine took home the overall win in the team competition. (This was also Leahy’s first year drafting a team at all.)
Although no woman took a title in any of the skill competitions, they still put on a show. Labreck scaled a 17-foot version of the Warped Wall and nearly had the 18-foot one conquered as well. She also finished over half of the 35-rung Super Salmon Ladder. Kacy Catenzaro competed in the Striding Steps. Martin returned for the Supersonic Shelf Grab and the Big Air Grab. Finally, Graff played in the Thunderbolt competition.
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American Ninja Warrior seems to have realized that women have plenty to give as well. Hopefully, that’ll be reflected in next year’s competition, which will air sometime this summer. In the meantime, we’ll start speculating on which superheroes Jessie Graff will choose as her inspiration for next season if she’s competing.
After all, the national finals still haven’t seen a women finish Stage 2.