Kacy Catanzaro’s historic 2014 season

With the recent announcement that Kacy Catanzaro is retiring from American Ninja Warrior, we wanted to take a look back at the season that turned her into such a big part of the show’s history.

Dallas Qualifiers

In 2014, Kacy became the first woman to complete the Warped Wall. She did so during the Qualifying round in Dallas, TX. Other women, like Michelle Warnky, would quickly follow suit, but this run helped the fans sit up and pay attention to what the women could accomplish.

Dallas City Finals

She returned just a few weeks later to dominate the entire City Finals course. She became the first woman to complete a City Finals course and qualify for the National Finals. Currently, she is still the only woman to have completed a Finals course.

This is when things REALLY got crazy. The video has almost 16 million views on Youtube and transformed Kacy from a Ninja to a superstar. The run tore through the Ninja community like wildfire. To many fans, this was an important moment, providing female representation of unquestionable strength.

2014 National Finals

While it wasn’t as Earth-shaking as her City Finals run, we also wanted to include her first trip to the National Finals. This was the first time a female competitor had qualified to run Stage One. Standing on that start line helped alter the perception that women had any kind of limitations on how far they could advance in American Ninja Warrior.

Kacy is retiring from American Ninja Warrior to move on to the WWE, but her influence on the show will linger for a VERY long time.