Some have called her Wonder Woman. Others have called her Spider-[wo]man. Most people know her as #mightykacy.
Kacy Catanzaro became the first woman ever in history to advance to the finals of the show “American Ninja Warrior.”
Standing at 5-feet tall and weighing 100 pounds, the 24-year-old competitor made it through the 2014 Dallas Finals obstacle course. Catanzaro, a Division I champion gymnast at Towson University in Maryland, was the NCAA Southeast Regional Gymnast of the Year and the ECAC Gymnast of the Year.
The breakout athlete became the first woman to overcome the warped wall course, and did it with relative ease. Catanzaro didn’t break a sweat either during the ring toss, which is a dreaded portion of the entire obstacle course. And she completed the entire course all under 10 minutes, leaving viewers at home speechless and spurring hysteria on social media.
“There obviously aren’t as many women that do the show. I think that has a lot to do with it — that women haven’t really been inclined to try out because they don’t think it’s for them,” she told Vulture. “And also just the fact that no woman has done it, it makes it feel unreachable to some women. You know, like, oh, no woman’s ever done it so obviously I can’t do it. Instead of thinking, no woman’s ever done it, I want to be the one to do it, which is the attitude that I took.”
Professional athletes and Navy SEALs have competed on the show. Catanzaro’s boyfriend, Brent Steffensen, trained her during the two years she’s competed. Steffensen, a four-time Mt. Midoriyama veteran and professional trampoline artist, did not last the qualifying round in Dallas, as shown in a June 2nd episode. After July 14’s episode aired, Catanzaro thanked her supporters on Instagram. Catanzaro will now move on to compete on the finals course “Mt. Midoriyama” in Las Vegas.
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