Abby Clark went from an early exit to the National Finals

Abby Clark did an immense amount of growing this season. While she’s not a rookie, her American Ninja Warrior experience was limited to one fairly short run during the Cleveland Qualifiers in season nine, falling on the Ring Jump.

This season, it was almost like fate worked to show us all Abby is a quick learner. After getting rained out in Philadelphia, Abby was moved to Minneapolis, where the Ring Jump just happened to be the third obstacle.

Abby passed the obstacle, moved down the course and became the only woman to hit that buzzer. Heading into the City Finals, Abby told us she knew people would be expecting a lot from her.

“It’s a lot of pressure. I know a lot of people even before going into the Qualifiers were like, ‘Oh you can do this course. You got it.’ There’s definitely a lot of pressure again going into finals, but I love the pressure. I’m just going to do it and see what happens.”

Abby’s City Finals run really got started at the Double Twister. She lingered on the obstacle for a bit before organizing her dismount.

The Ring Jump was replaced with the Sky Hooks for the City Finals. Abby was strong through the obstacle that felled a few competitors.

During Qualifiers, Abby had to take a body dive on Diamond Dash to make it to the platform. This time, she stayed on her feet all the way across.

One of the most impressive moments of her run was on the Battering Ram. Abby transitioned to the second rail and barely hesitated before jolting the cylinder rapidly to the end.

Back at the Warped Wall, Abby must have been thinking back to Qualifiers. During that run, she needed all three attempts to clear the wall.

A similar situation took place on the City Finals course. However this time, Abby reached the edge, but couldn’t hang on, ending her run.

While we wanted to see her tackle the back half, Abby was still in second place among the women. This moved her on to Vegas. We have a feeling she’s going to have locked in a Warped Wall strategy by then. She won’t need to learn that lesson again.