This Gymnast Achieved Sports Immortality Through 'American Ninja Warrior'

In these cynical, media-drenched times, it seems a little naïve to get inspired by sports. We're impressed, even awed, by certain feats—LeBron James dismantling defenses through inhuman physicality and skill, the elegant passing of the Spurs or the German national soccer team, dudes dragging cars using only their teeth, Giancarlo Stanton launching a baseball 500 feet into the stands—but inspiration is a cornball word, one used by gym teachers and middle-aged men who get teary when they watch Rudy in the basement after three IPAs. Professional athletes are commodities who mostly exist to sell weird-looking shoes and beverages that come in flavors like "fierce ice"; when we watch them compete we're basically just looking at people do their jobs. Sure, it's nice to see our teams do well—and wall-punchingly frustrated to watch them blow it, AGAIN—but unless we really buy into all those "Overcoming Obstacles" narratives spoon-fed to us by the major sports channels, our hearts don't actually grow three sizes when, say, Russell Wilson performs efficiently in the Super Bowl.

OK, all that said: Have you seen the video of Kacy Catanzaro going through the American Ninja Warrior obstacle course? You probably have, since it's been viewed over 3.3 million times since it went up on Monday (and racked up 13,000 likes to only 269 dislikes), and also because it's at the top of this post. (Go ahead and hit "play" now if you're the sort of person who reads articles before watching the videos that the articles are about.)

I first saw this video thanks to Bill Hanstock at SB Nation, but I had already watched the episode where she completed the first section of the course (up to the running-up-the-wall part) to qualify for Monday night's Dallas finals, so I knew Catanzaro's story: She's a super athletic gymnast who has more strength per pound than any of the muscled workout addicts who try and usually fail to complete the show's insanely difficult course. She's also a favorite of the crowd, who chant her name almost worshipfully, and the announcers, who say things like, "Are you not entertained?!" and "WOW!!!" and "WHAT?!" and "I'm really in awe of Kacy" and even "Kacy Catanzaro, rewriting all the history books in American Ninja Warrior!" while she competes.

During her performance, she became the first woman to attempt and complete the "salmon ladder," the bit where the contestants have to push a metal pull-up bar up a series of rungs. I do not know how this is even possible, but she didn't even make it look particularly hard. And that isn't even the good part of the video.

The good part is right after that, when she finds herself dangling from a red metal frame above a pool of water, a point at which most aspiring American Ninja Warriors have to stretch across a tricky gap to another red metal frame—except her arms are too short to reach. It's the kind of situation usually encountered only by characters played by Bruce Willis, but there she is. She has to jump across and grab the (presumably slippery) metal frame and hang on while it swings from her weight. It seems impossible, and the fact that nothing really that bad will happen to her if she fails—she'll just get wet and be disappointed—is beside the point. People are cheering and mumbling, "Do it!" in the background. They are invested. Watching it after the fact over my morning coffee, so was I. This is IMPORTANT.

She makes it, of course. The crowd goes into a frenzy and one of the announcers howls, "HOW SHE HAS THE STRENGTH I DO NOT KNOW BUT CATANZARO REFUSES TO QUIT ON THIS COURSE!"

American Ninja Warrior is a silly show where adults complete odd physical challenges thought up by other adults. It's no less made up than baseball or football or the decathlon, of course, but knowing that it came from the head of some TV development dudes and not a long-dead sport-creating genius makes it less freighted with importance, somehow. There are no American Ninja history books, no American Ninja fan bases or traditions. It's just some people jumping around and straining while other people cheer.

None of that particularly mattered when Catanzaro vaulted her way up the five-foot-wide shaft that's the last challenge on the course and hit the button that marked its end and slapped it over and over with the joyous, drained desperation of a parched woman finding a water canteen in the middle of the desert. Nor was I thinking about the cheesiness of the show when, seconds later, her boyfriend/coach clambered up the scaffolding of the tower she was standing on and embraced her in a moment of triumph that was a raw and real as anything from the World Cup. She had done something no one had ever done before and she was basking in it—all that joy and celebration and love and accomplishment. "That was crazy! What was that?" her boyfriend said as he hugged her. It's a pretty inspiring moment.

Harry Cheadle couldn't even do the initial jumping-from-platform-to-platform bit of that course. Follow him on Twitter.