Although it’s not impossible to win “American Ninja Warrior,” it’s far from easy.
To achieve total victory and claim the competition’s $1 million prize, one must successfully navigate the entire four-stage obstacle course of the National Finals — a timed course that gets substantially harder with each stage.
Here’s a statistic to put into perspective how difficult that is: Over 13 seasons of the show, only five people have made it to Stage 4 — the 80-foot rope climb that must be completed in 30 seconds.
Which is why the Season 14 finale was so unusual.
On Wednesday night, a whopping five competitors made it to the rope climb, the website Reality Blurred reported. The finalists included 16-year-old Kaden Lebsack, who last year was the only person to reach this part of the competition, per the Deseret News.
In addition to being the youngest person to ever reach the rope climb, Lebsack is now also the first person in “American Ninja Warrior” history to reach Stage 4 twice, according to Reality Blurred.
So, who won ‘American Ninja Warrior’ 2022?
This is where the format of “American Ninja Warrior” can be frustrating.
Although five people made it to — and successfully completed — the rope climb Wednesday night, no one was able to complete it within the 30-second time frame. So, like most seasons of the show, no one walked away with the $1 million prize.
Instead, the five competitors ended up competing for the fastest time — and a $100,000 prize. For the second year in a row, the award went to Lebsack, who beat recent high school grad Jay Lewis by about a second, per Reality Blurred.
Mady Howard, a former college gymnast from Washington, Utah, who reached the national finals this season, recently told the Deseret News that she finds the show’s tough format more motivating than discouraging.
“There’s always something new that I can learn,” she said. “There’s always something that I could be better at. And so it’s never like you’ve reached a destination. There’s constantly things that I want to improve on. And so that motivates me to keep going.”