American Ninja Warrior host Kristine Leahy did it again! For the second season in a row, her All-Stars team reigned over the Team Competition. It wasn’t a runaway success, both Team Akbar and Team Matt gave them a run for their money. But in the end, Jessie Graff, Flip Rodriguez, and JJ Woods put together two nearly flawless relay runs.
On Stage One, they edged out Team Matt’s top time by one second, sending them straight to Stage Three. Matt and Akbar’s teams had to run again on Stage Two to determine who would face the pink team.
Team Matt won the second match-up and ran first on Stage Three. Don’t overlook this relay. After a great set up by Lance Pekus and Jamie Rahn, Jesse Labreck brought it home by becoming the first Ninja to defeat the Time Bomb and the first female Ninja to defeat the Flying Bar on Stage Three.
That set up the pressure for Team Kristine. They not only had to complete every obstacle, they had to do it in less than 6:17.96.
But, oh my, did they rise to the occasion. Jessie set things up with a careful run through the first three obstacles. Then Flip created a time buffer by flying through his obstacles. This gave JJ the breathing room he needed to focus calmly on that last two. He hit the buzzer at 6:12.06!
To celebrate her second year as queen of the team competition, Kristine Leahy joined her team in a joyous dunk!
Team @KristineLeahy celebrates their awesome win with a refreshing dip! #AmericanNinjaWarrior pic.twitter.com/ub0a8ptpVr
— Ninja Warrior Nation (@anwnation) May 18, 2018
Better luck next season, Matt and Akbar!