American Ninja Warrior veteran Flip Rodriguez is taking on the Los Angeles City Finals course on Monday in hopes of securing a spot in the Las Vegas Finals.
This is Rodriguez's seventh season competing on the NBC competition show. He has made it to the National Finals in Las Vegas in five of his six seasons and has reached the second stage (of the four-stage course) four times. When he hits the course, his fans expect to see him move fast.
In city finals runs, competitors face four more obstacles than they did in the qualifying round. In addition to two new obstacles—Baton Pass and Spider Trap—Flip faced the same one he fell on during his qualifying run in June.
He began Season 10 by successfully completing the first four obstacles he faced: the Floating Steps, the Jumper Cables, the Spinning Bridge and the Sky Hooks. However, he was not able to make it past the Doorknob Drop in the Los Angeles Qualifiers. While he did not hit the buzzer at the top of the Warped Wall—something that hasn't happened since Season 6—he did reach that fifth obstacle fast enough to make it into the Top 30 and advance to the city finals round.
He faced the Doorknob Drop again in the city finals, airing Monday, and conquered it. Fellow American Nina Warrior competitor Meagan Martin and Flip's Tadpoles, the students he coaches, cheered him on. He then made it up the 14.5-foot Warped Wall to take on the back part of the course, which American Ninja Warrior host Matt Iseman called the "upper body gauntlet."
First was the Salmon Ladder. Flip then moved on to the Giant Cubes. "Getting past the Giant cubes fast enough could keep you in the Top 15, but the only way to guarantee a spot in the National Finals is to finish the course," Iseman said.
The qualifying rounds of Season 10 concluded last week with Minneapolis City. The city finals begin in Los Angeles on Monday. American Ninja Warrior airs Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on NBC. Competitors are fighting for a prize of $1 million.
America’s greatest Ninjas will get one last chance for redemption. #AmericanNinjaWarrior city finals hit LA MONDAY 8/7c on @nbc. https://t.co/Xa7mdjL1Od
— Ninja Warrior (@ninjawarrior) July 12, 2018
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