The Salmon Ladders have all been scaled and the Summer 2021 season of “American Ninja Warrior” is in the books. Season 13 was the lucky one for winner Kaden Lebsack, who banked $100,000 in the strength and agility competition.
“American Ninja Warrior” winners can win up to $1,000,000 in prize money.
When Monday’s episode began, 20 ninjas were still technically in contention — and 19 of them hadn’t even run Stage Two ahead of the finale. (If you think 20 is a large number of ninjas, Season 13 featured more than 400 competitors.)
In addition to Lebsack, the Top 20 consisted of Jake Murray, Kyle Soderman, Isaiah Thomas, Joe Moravsky, Josiah Pippel, Tyler Yamauchi, Sean Bryan, Matt Bradley, Austin Gray, Brian Burkhardt, Vance Walker, Jesse Labreck, Kai Beckstrand, Isaiah Wakeham, Mike Silenzi, Jonathan Godbout, Ryan Meeks, Enzo DeFerrari Wilson and Adam Rayl.
On “American Ninja Warrior,” insanely athletic individuals take on perhaps the world’s most difficult obstacle course. Season 13 of the NBC competition series, which is hosted by Matt Iseman, Akbar Gbajabiamila and Zuri Hall, took place in Seattle, Washington and Los Angeles, California. The finals were in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Gbajabiamila is staying busy beyond this summer. He recently replaced Elaine Welteroth as co-host of “The Talk.” The CBS daytime talk show is now hosted by the quartet of Sheryl Underwood, Amanda Kloots, Jerry O’Connell and Gbajabiamila.
This season, the age limit for competitors was lowered to 15 years old. The family-friendly show has caused an obstacle course craze — including among kids — and NBC wanted to allow older teens to take on the challenge this season. As a matter of fact, seven of Summer 2021’s Final 20 were under 18 years old.
“American Ninja Warrior” is executive produced by A. Smith & Co. Productions’ founders Arthur Smith and Kent Weed along with Brian Richardson, Anthony Storm and Kristen Stabile.
The series is a steady summer performer. Including one week of (mostly) DVR viewing, Season 13 of “American Ninja Warrior” has averaged a 0.7 rating among adults 18-49 and 3.9 million total viewers.
Here’s a photo of Kaden doing his thing.
That’s some winning form right there.