Growing up in North Potomac, Maryland, Karen Potts loved watching NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” on TV. On Monday night, she’ll compete in Stage 1 of the finals.
“I’m definitely excited to watch,” Potts, 19, told WTOP. “I know what happens, but I love to see the way they put it all together and then a bunch of my friends are competing too, the way you meet people through there. I’ll be back at school by then, so I think my softball team and some other friends are all going to watch it together.”
She currently attends Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where she’s majoring in nutrition and psychology with a minor in sports medicine — all things that come in handy on “American Ninja Warrior.”
“Nutrition is big when you’re competing in sports, especially when you’re competing in something like ‘Ninja’ where it’s very active, a lot of strength is involved,” Potts said. “Then psychology, being on the course and especially with this being a TV show, there’s a big mental aspect, so that definitely goes hand in hand.”
Her athletic prowess began at Wootton High School where she was a goalkeeper on the soccer team in the fall, a post player on the basketball team in the winter, and a shortstop on the softball team in the spring.
“Hand-eye coordination, agility and overall athleticism helps a lot with ‘Ninja,'” Potts said.
This isn’t her first ninja rodeo. The teenager previously competed in Season 2 of “American Ninja Warrior Junior,” followed by Season 14 of the adult “American Ninja Warrior” where she fell during the finals in 2020.
“In Season 14 on Stage 1, I fell on something called the Giant Rollercoaster,” Potts said. “There’s three different tracks, so you’re hanging on a bar on the first one, then you slide down it and lache, which is what they call jumping from bar to bar. You have to lache to another track, slide down that one, then for the third one you have to carry the bar with you and place it in smaller handles and dismount from there. I fell on the transfer with the bar.”
Now, she’s making her comeback on Season 16 trying to finally get over the finish line.
“I definitely wanted to come back because I love the sport itself,” Potts said. “Ninja has such a great community, so the experience of being on the show is just super cool and super fun. You get to meet people from all over, so I wanted that aspect again. I also wanted to do better than I had done. … I wanted to try that one again and hopefully beat it. I was super excited when I was called to be on Season 16 because I wanted another chance.”
This season started with her placing first in the qualifying round, becoming the only woman to reach the fifth obstacle in a six-obstacle course. In the semifinals, she won a side-by-side race in another obstacle course.
“The beep sounded, which started our race, I was running across steps, you have to go back and forth, and went through these laches,” Potts said. “I was a step and a half ahead of my opponent into the wing nuts … made the dismount then onto the next obstacle, hop scotch, which is small cliffhanger ledges to little laches. I was about one move in and saw my opponent fall next to me, so I knew the only thing I had to do was complete that obstacle.”
Now, she faces her biggest challenge yet in Stage 1 of the finals in Las Vegas.
“Tonight, there’s a bunch of big obstacles,” Potts said. “It starts with big agility strides into a double barrel, which is two big swings on rotating barrels to dismount, followed by the Giant Rollercoaster, which is actually the obstacle that took me out last year. After that, there’s a spider wall, which is a trampoline jump, you have to prop yourself up between two walls. There’s another upper-body obstacle, then the Warped Wall, a staple of ‘Ninja Warrior.'”
Listen to our full conversation here.
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