Latest news with #AmericanNinjaWarrior
Yahoo
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'American Ninja Warrior' Season 17 premieres June 2. What to know about Milwaukee's returning star, Taylor Amann
The lineup for "American Ninja Warrior" Season 17 is made up of new and veteran Ninjas, according to NBC Insider. One Ninja returning to the grueling obstacle-course show? Former Wisconsin Badgers pole vaulting superstar and Milwaukeean Taylor Amann. After winning "Team Ninja Warrior: College Madness" with two teammates coming up on a decade ago, Amann competed on "ANW" four times, making it to the national finals once. Not being in "the best space mentally" when she last competed on Season 15, she said in a previous Journal Sentinel interview, she fell on the second obstacle of the qualifying course, which meant she wouldn't advance to semifinals. After that, Amann thought she had retired from her time as a Ninja. But then, she kept going "back-and-forth" on whether that was how she wanted to end her "ANW" career. "As a competitive person and someone who's been an athlete my whole life, I couldn't leave it at that," Amann said. Filled with nerves and excitement, Amann flew to Las Vegas in October for filming. To see if Amann made the cut, episodes of Season 17's Las Vegas qualifiers will begin airing on June 2 on NBC. Here's what to know about Amann and Season 17 of the sports-entertainment competition show: 29 years old. Amann is a Hartland native who lives in Milwaukee. Amann is a social media manager at The Weaponry, an advertising agency. Her side hustle: A photography business in which she captures weddings, couples, families, seniors and branding. As an influencer, she has brand deals with Wantable, which has included a collection of her picks, and BYLT Basics. Amann graduated from Arrowhead High School and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After competing and winning "Team Ninja Warrior: College Madness" with two teammates in 2016, Amann went on to compete on "American Ninja Warrior" four times: Seasons 11, 12, 13 and 15. Season 17 will be her fifth attempt (not including "College Madness"). "Team Ninja Warrior: College Madness": Won. "American Ninja Warrior": Season 11: Made it to the national finals. Season 12: Eliminated during the qualifying round. Season 13: Made it to the semifinals. Season 15: Eliminated during the qualifying round. Season 17: TBD. Last year, Amann started Ninja training again, which reminded her of "how fun it was," she said in a previous Journal Sentinel interview. That, paired with encouragement from her boss, she decided to give the obstacle course show another go. Amann applied to be a part of Season 17 at the last minute last summer. A couple weeks after submitting her "ANW" application video, Amann received a call from a show producer, inviting her to compete on the upcoming season. In general, Amann works out just about every day. She does HITT (high-intensity interval training) and circuit training focused on strength, with a little cardio. To prep for the show, she added in training at Ultimate Ninjas Oak Creek, where she practiced pull-ups, hanging, swinging and balance obstacles. She met the gym's owner, fellow "ANW" fixture Michael Silenzi, competing on the show a few years back. She also prioritized her "mental game," working on staying calm, focused, positive and confident, regardless of the obstacle at hand. That was "the toughest part," she said in our previous interview. "I've been an athlete my whole life. I like being competitive," she said. "It's just kind of like trusting what I can do. 'Cause as long as I'm training for it and working out every day, I know that my body's ready for it. It's just, my head could be holding me back. So, just staying positive about it." Amann started competing in gymnastics at 5 years old. She was a part of the Midwest Twisters Gymnastics, then competed for the Arrowhead High School team. She committed to pole vaulting after her junior year of high school. As a pole vaulter at UW-Madison, she became a three-time Big Ten champion and two-time All-American. According to NBC Insider, the show is hosted by Akbar Gbajabiamila and Matt Iseman, along with sideline co-host Zuri Hall. "ANW" Season 17 will feature a lineup of new and veteran Ninjas; the return of some fan-favorite obstacles, including CannonBall Alley; and a few surprise format changes, according to NBC Insider. "This season is really looking at the future of Ninja but also celebrating the past ..." Iseman told NBC Insider. "We saw some upsets that you never would've predicted in a million years. And then we saw redemptions that just made your heart swell. So the season was filled with so many highlights and so many incredible moments." This season's prize? $1 million. "The path to victory will demand even more mind-boggling strength and jaw-dropping speed as these Ninjas are put to the ultimate test," NBC Insider reported. "From the inspiring Ninja stories to the high-flying leaps that take our breath away, Season 17 is bringing the heat." "American Ninja Warrior" Season 17 airs at 7 p.m. Mondays on NBC. The season premiere is June 2. Episodes steam on Peacock, NBC's streaming service, the day after they air. This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: American Ninja Warrior Season 17: What to know, how to watch, Taylor Amann
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
'American Ninja Warrior' hits the obstacle course for season 17
LAS VEGAS (WSAV) — All bets are off as the ultimate obstacle course conquers Las Vegas to celebrate the past, present and exciting future of Ninja! Legendary competitors and fierce new ninjas tackle fan-favorite obstacles and leveled-up races in an all-new season. Season 17 of 'American Ninja Warrior' begins Monday at 8 p.m. on WSAV. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
18-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Circus Performer Uses Her Ponytail to Break World Record for Longest Time Suspended by the Hair
American circus artist Leila Noone broke Guinness World Records' record for longest time suspended by the hair The professional hair hanger was suspended by her ponytail for 25 minutes and 11.3 seconds in a forest in California Noone, a four-time competitor on NBC's American Ninja Warrior, trained for two years to accomplish this featLeila Noone had a good hair day! The multidisciplinary circus artist, 39, recently broke the world record for longest time suspended by the hair — hanging by her ponytail for more than 25 minutes — according to Guinness World Records (GWR). To break the record of 23 minutes and 19 seconds, previously set in 2011 by Suthakaran Sivagnanathurai in Australia, the American attempted the feat in a forest at California's Redwood National and State Parks. With an acoustic guitar player providing live music and a few people delivering positive affirmations during her attempt, Noone locked in the record with a time of 25 minutes and 11.3 seconds. View this post on Instagram A post shared by Guinness World Records (@guinnessworldrecords) 'Thanks for all the love ❤️❤️❤️,' Noone wrote on an Instagram Stories repost of GWR's video of her record-breaking accomplishment. is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more! The professional hair hanger, who lives in Texas and is a four-time competitor on NBC's American Ninja Warrior, trained for two years before trying to break the record longest time suspended by the hair, per GWR. Aside from hair suspension, Noone also performs handstand archery with her feet, aerial stunts, acrobatics, contortion and Cyr wheel. She works as a member of Cirque Vida, a circus company in Austin, Texas. Read the original article on People
The Guardian
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
A new start after 60: I did my first pull-up at 63 – then fought to be a ninja warrior
Ginny MacColl was 63 when she accepted her daughter's challenge to complete a pull-up. It took nine months to nail it. Now, a decade on, MacColl can pump out 17 of them in a row. It's hard to argue with her when she says: 'You can get stronger with age.' MacColl has since competed three times in the reality TV show American Ninja Warrior. She's the oldest person to complete an obstacle, and the oldest female ninja athlete, according to Guinness World Records. It was watching her daughter, Jessie Graff, a stuntwoman, compete on the show that made her want to grow stronger herself. 'What do I do?' she asked Graff, who told her: 'Pull-ups.' As a former professional dancer, MacColl, now 73, had always been fit. But she had been diagnosed with osteopenia, a precursor to osteoporosis, and had never been in a gym before. Graff's challenge called for a different kind of strength – and a mental shift. 'When I grew up, women weren't encouraged to lift weights,' MacColl says. 'It was: 'You don't want to get bulky. It's not feminine …'' Seeing Graff in action, cheering her on, MacColl saw 'such strength and grace – and she had muscles! I realised that the things people had always said about muscles were so wrong. It was a disservice to women.' A shy child, MacColl was enrolled in dance lessons by her parents, initially to draw her out of her shell. 'Movement is a way of talking. It is an expression of what's inside you,' she says. In fact, she fell so completely in love with dance that, aged 20, she left Tennessee for New York. 'The goal was just to dance all day. Everybody said: 'You're not going to make it.'' But in 1974, she landed a part in Pippin, a Broadway show with Bob Fosse. 'I felt on top of the world,' she says. She branched out into TV commercials during the 70s and 80s, acting as 'a housewife and mum, smiling with my product beside me … Folgers coffee, Jordache jeans, Charmin … ' Her off-screen life mirrored those ads. She got married and had two children, even shooting one commercial three days after giving birth. 'A golden time,' she says. But 'all good things come to an end', and MacColl got divorced after 13 years of marriage, moving with her two children into the family's lake house in the Poconos, surrounded by 160 hectares (400 acres) of forest. There she needed a different kind of strength. 'It was a magical but very hard place,' she says. 'We had blizzards, bats in the house, bears outside. It took a sense of determination: 'I will make this work.'' Teaching dance alone didn't pay enough, and nobody wanted to hire her. Eventually, she got a sales job at the local radio station. She kept fit, swam in the lake with her kids and devised improvised obstacle courses in the woods with sticks and string. She told herself that if she ever returned to acting, she would 'come back as a granny'. At 62, she retired from her 20-year career in radio sales, having remarried and seen her children through college. Then she got an agent, auditioned for roles and began to swim competitively. She'd seen her parents grow sedentary in their retirement, and wanted something different for herself. To complete that first pull-up, she broke it down into sections, working on each element in turn. But when she debuted on American Ninja Warrior, she fell at the first obstacle. 'I was devastated. I felt I'd let down all the seniors in the world.' The biggest obstacle she has overcome in life, MacColl says, is failure itself. She felt like a failure at school, when she and her classmates were lined up in order of their IQ scores, and also when her first marriage ended. Now here it was again. 'It took me a while to get over that,' she says. 'There's a saying I like to tell myself: 'Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.' So I try to look at failure as a motivator. I will get this. Social media was my way of getting out of the doldrums. I started posting some of the things I could do.' She has more than 130,000 followers on Instagram, and over the past six years has landed parts in films including Poms (with Diane Keaton) and You're Cordially Invited (with Will Ferrell and Reese Witherspoon). She has just filmed her next appearance on American Ninja Warrior. In the process of all this, she has reversed her osteopenia. MacColl believes she can continue to get stronger into her 80s and 90s. 'Muscle is the organ of longevity,' she says. Tell us: has your life taken a new direction after the age of 60? Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.
Daily Mail
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
Ex-NFL star Akbar Gbajabiamila brutally loses TV job after only one season on Good Morning Football
Former defensive end Akbar Gbajabiamila is reportedly leaving 'Good Morning Football' after just one season on the flagship morning show of NFL Network. The former Raiders, Chargers and Dolphins star, 46, spent seven years with NFL Network between 2012 and 2019 before joining 'The Talk' on CBS. Gbajabiamila returned to covering football in the fall of 2024, as part of major changes to the NFL Network cast. He was brought in to replace Jason McCourty. But Gbajabiamila last appeared on GMFB on February 14. Since then, a rotating cast of guests has taken his place on the show. And, according to Deadline, the 46-year-old will not be returning. Gbajabiamila still hosts 'American Ninja Warrior' on NBC. He returned to NFL Network after GMFB moved its primary studio from New York to Los Angeles, with Manti Te'o among the new faces to appear in recent months. NFL Network recently lost Peter Schrager, too. He joined ESPN, where he will appear regularly on shows including 'First Take' and 'The Pat McAfee Show'. Gbajabiamila gave no indication that he was leaving on his now-farewell appearance a few days after the Super Bowl. 'This was my first season, and it was such a cool experience to be able to go through this entire process and now to get to this point and get the week off,' he said. 'I'm going to Florida too with (Schrager). But I'm only going to be there for a couple of days, and I'm going to hop over to the Bahamas. But, it's been real.'
