The verdict is in and Ian Dory is (still) a beast

Ian Dory has been quietly impressing the American Ninja Warrior audience for years with his skills. Not one for grand gestures or playing to the audience, Ian has completed the last three City Finals courses he’s stepped foot on.

In Denver, he faced a course arguably harder than those he’s seen before in the City Finals. In return, Ian showed the course exactly how tough he can be.

When we caught up with Ian, he was already on the Rail Runner. But that’s okay because we’re here to talk about what the heck happened on the back half of the course.

Ian had already seen the Wedge take out a dozen competitors. But he didn’t let that get into his head. He focused on his training and his strategy and pushed forward.

After taking down that obstacle, Ian went on to the Ninjago Roll. We’d seen it take out Lorin Ball and Jesse Lucero already. This thing was a straight forward energy drain.

But as he crested the slope of the track we started to understand just how much Ian wanted to finish this course.

After stepping on to the landing pad, Ian took a moment to check in with his shoulder. It was apparent he was getting worn down and perhaps was even feeling a little pain.

Yet he shook it off and tore up the Elevator Climb. He was grimacing, he was giving it his all, but he was quickly moving towards the buzzer.

When Ian threw legs over the platform it looked like the Denver course would finally be defeated.

Then, suddenly, he fell backwards and a collective scream went up from American Ninja Warrior fans everywhere.

From another angle, we could see just how precarious this was.

But failure just wasn’t on Ian’s mind. Somehow, he found his grip again and rolled away from the chute.

After all that, he barely had any energy left to lift his arm to the buzzer.

It gave us one of the most hard-fought and satisfying course competitions of the season.

After that display of perseverance, we’re sure Ian will have something in store for the National Finals as well!