Last night's Venice finals I think was a little too upper-body strength focused. hourglass drop, warped wall, salmon ladder, rolling dice, tilted climb then invisible ladder? unless you go thru the salmon ladder and rolling dice fast enough, your arms would be burning by the tilted climb.

They have seemingly changed the focus of their qualifying courses from smooth athleticism to upper body challenges. It probably does produce a better talent pool ready for the much tougher stages but many of the strength challenges take forever. They really should save them for the city Finals.

Parkour athletes used to fly through the courses. Now it's all rock climbers.

Just watched the first episode of the season. I had no idea what this show was until I watched Kacy's run last year after someone posted it on social media.

It's a good show, but my attention wandered a bit during the two hours, and I'm not sure how different the other episodes would be with other courses in other cities.

Each city does have a different course with a few different obstacles, so each episode unfolds a little differently. This episode was a little smoother than normal since everyone already knew each person's story and they focused more on the competition. Earlier episodes had much more stuff about their backgrounds.

I just got caught up last night and I think Jessie Graff could go the farthest of any of the other female contestants. It helps that she's 5'8 and she has nine inches of height on Kacy and at least six on Meagan. She's also really strong while also having acrobatic and gymnastic training. I was really impressed with her run.

I guess the courses are more strength based than free running now due to the final three stages being strength based. I do think they made some of the obstacles way too hard this year.

I wonder if we'll ever have an American finish the whole course?

I don't know, they keep making the courses tougher and tougher. If they hadn't kept changing the courses, I am pretty sure David Campbell or one of the other all-stars would have beat the fourth stage. They didn't do that with the Japanese courses until people had actually beaten them.

You're right about Jessie's size. It's a big advantage on many of the obstacles over the other top women.

I started watching this show last year and to be honest i am almost ready to check out. Way too much time spent on tear jerker stories and the way they are constantly trying to make stars out of the female contestants is pathetic. Great to anyone who does well on the show, man or woman. A lot of huge egos on this show as well.

Just reading what i have put has made my mind up. So long Ninjas.

Jesse Graff's performance was super impressive in the Venice Finals. Amazing! And I'm pretty sure had she been able to see someone else do the clear wall first, she might have made some different choices about her handholds.

It really irritates me how they keep changing the course though, especially given the fact that no one has ever completed it. I could go for making it 10% harder each year or something, but this year's tryout course knocked out almost all the players half way through.

I'd also like them to make some way for all players to get a couple practice run-throughs before airing. Since they all only get ONE shot, it seems like they should be able to feel how something like the trampoline works before being expected to know exactly what direction, velocity and force to hit it.

And while the women started doing better last year, this new course is really putting them at a disadvantage with its increasing focus on upper body strength. Jesse still wow'd, but even 90% of the men who had bulging biceps couldn't hold on.

I definitely zoned out during the background stuff, except when the Seahawks punter was on.

Man the hard luck and sob stories just PISS ME THE FUCK OFF !

I just want to see the best athletes compete ! not people who have been ass raped/molested/cancer/drug addict/had people die etc etc

Have a separate show and call it "Best Hard luck/COmeback stories' and go for your life with these kind of things but for an athletic obstacle course show i want to see the best athletes go at it for no muss and no fuss


and too many bloody useless women ! and too many bloody useless old people !

Last year's USA vs. the World did a much better job of focusing on the competition and leaving the Olympic-style sob story packaging behind. If people can't handle the background stories, check that one-off episode out.

Unless i missed something

No Sean McColl
No Tim Sheriff
No Jesse Laflair
No Brian Oroscho
No Levi Meuminberg
No Frosty

Assume you mean Tim "Livewire" Schieff. I definitely noticed not seeing him and Laflair this year. The others I don't recognize.

Levi Meeuwenberg and Brian Orosco are free-runners actually better known for competing in the original Japanese show Sasuke. They were legitimate American competitors in Japan, getting to stage 3 on several occasions.

A couple of them were also stunt people. Prior work obligations in the past have blocked them from participating. I don't know if that was the case this year. I've always assumed anyone that makes it to the second stage gets an automatic invitation the next year.

The free-runners became less and less dominant once the courses shifted to harder upper-body strength tests.

Sean McColl is one of the best competitive climbers in the world, better than Issac and he rocked USA v world last year

I wanted to see him in the main show this year

That final arm climb up the rings looks brutal being placed at the end. So many strong competitors have failed on it this year. It's amazing that only a walk-on finished the entire stage. When he said he trained for the last 365 days, I could believe it.

Just watching ep 7

Man i don't give a fuck about that mofo whose mum died and grandma has cancer, boo fuckin woo, people die all the mofo time. jesus christ !

Make it about the course NBC !

"While we were running that clip, two more contestants took on the course..."

Man they don't want anyone to win this...

They've made it very tough to finish the stage 2 city courses. I guess this was inevitable with the increasing talent pool and the rise of contestants that seem to be doing this as professional obstacle athletes.

I understand that athletes get pumped by the crowd to quickly finish that final arm climb, but Ninja Warrior has stacked the odds by usually putting two very intense arm challenges back to back at the end of each stage 2 course. The right approach for most of them would be to simply rest a couple of minutes after the ninth obstacle has been completed since time is not a factor at that point. Even the elite athletes have little shot at the final obstacle after their arms are pumped out from prior arm challenges.

So wrong that they focused on some people who failed the Vegas finals stage 1 some badly but then 2 people who actually completed the course got the during the break montage.

I'm guessing there will be more on them in stage 2. Have to fill two hours with 30 minutes of entertainment somehow. Next year I'm not going to bother recording anything until the Vegas rounds.

I was out, but i caught last nights show inadvertently. I hate the bullshit of this show that focuses on the lifes. They really drag this show out. Also that Kacy Catanzaro seems to be in almost every friggin audience shot. She annoys the shit out of me. I may watch next week just to see her fail badly.

They are always a lot better about focusing on the action during the later rounds and Vegas.

It was pretty disappointing that five minutes into Vegas, David Campbell and Paul Kasemir were already out. Campbell has been training like a maniac for stage 3 the past couple of years and hasn't made it past stage 1 of Vegas. His time as a legitimate threat to win it all may be over at 38, which is sad.

I think someone may actually scale the mountain this year. This is definitely the deepest pool of athletes the show has ever seen.