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This Massachusetts electrician is the top local finisher on ‘American Ninja Warrior’
Six New Englanders— including a Celtics Dunk Team member — made the finale.
Step aside, New England Patriots. We’ve got a new dynasty.
New Englanders — specifically Massachusetts ninjas — dominated this season of NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior.”
At the start of season 17, I wrote that I was expecting huge things from New England competitors this season. They proved me right.
For the third season in a row, Noah Meunier, 19, a Lakeville native now of Fairhaven, was the last New Englander standing. He placed second overall in the season finale that aired Monday night.
We had 18 New Englanders start this season in June, which saw a new format: the finals were head-to-head live-or-die races. Fall or lose the race and your season is over.
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Six New Englanders and two New England natives made it to the finale, according to the show: Meunier, Matt D’Amico of Billerica (a member of the Boston Celtics Dunk Team), Evan Lavallee of Lancaster, Amir Malik of Essex Junction, Vermont; Christian Hart of Meriden, Connecticut; and Joe Moravsky of Monroe, Connecticut. Plus: Warwick, Rhode Island native Luke Dillon and Connecticut native Jay Lewis, both of whom recently moved to Florida.
In a nail-biting final showdown, Meunier lost a head-to-head race with Kai Beckstrand, 19 — an EMT from Utah who may be one of the best ninjas to ever ninja.
Beckstrand won the $250,000 grand prize. While there’s no money for second place, Meunier, who turns 20 on Monday, is fine with just the glory.
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The all-or-nothing stakes are “part of what makes the show exciting for the fans,” Meunier told me in a phone interview Monday.
For the uninitiated, the NBC sports reality competition series — co-hosted by Matt Iseman, Akbar Gbaja-Biamila, and Zuri Hall — started in 2009, based on the Japanese show “Sasuke.” Obstacles change with the seasons. (Example here.) While the show has a fun, loose vibe, it’s no “Double Dare.”
The sport of ninja is a signature house-blend of rock climbing, parkour, gymnastics, a dash of track with an X-Games vibe — and no other sport translates. In past seasons, we’ve seen former pro athletes — including former NFL players, track stars, Olympic gymnasts and UFC fighters — fail miserably.
New Englanders have begun to dominate this sport in recent years.
Meunier — the Tom Brady of ninja, to keep the metaphor going — blazed through four races in a row on Monday, flying through the bracket to make the final showdown.
Until that last race, Meunier also had a perfect record for never falling on an obstacle on the show. Ever. A counter in the corner of the screen kept a running tally of his streak throughout this season. He completed 129 in a row and fell on obstacle 130 — “Falling Shelves” — Monday night.
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…Oh, and he was sick.
“During one of the post-run interviews Akbar said, ‘Is this your flu game, Michael Jordan?’” he told me with a laugh. While he had a cold, not the flu, looking back now, he’s just thankful: “I don’t even know how I got through it.”
New England Strong
In the years I’ve been watching and covering, I’ve seen local athletes only grow stronger in skill and number — and expected a season like this.
When I covered Season 15, 17 New Englanders started out. Four made the finals: Meunier, then 17, his girlfriend Addy Herman of Pembroke, Mass General’s own 4-foot-11 Taylor “Teej” Johnson, and Jonathan Godbout of Sterling. Meunier was the last New Englander standing that season, finishing third overall.
In Season 16, 18 New Englanders started the season, with Meunier placed third — once again, the top local. Men and women run the same courses; there are no separate events. It’s historically men who win the overall competition.
Herman won the 2024 ANW Women’s Championship, which aired as a stand-alone special, taking the trophy and $50,000 home to Pembroke. So while the 20-year-old didn’t advance to this season’s finale — she was still recouping from injury— I expect a solid show from the reigning champ at the upcoming women’s championship.
Oh, and the power couple set a Guinness World Record in January for “The fastest time to complete a ‘mammoth’ obstacle course by a mixed pair.”
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“We heard about other ninjas applying to do it. We said, ‘Hey, we’ll throw in our shot,’” Meunier said. “So it was really cool to get to do that with Addy, especially.”
During Meunier’s final races, one corner-screen camera focused on Herman— hands clasped in front of her face— with pal Johnson, of Bridgewater, leaning against her. Side note: You may see Johnson this winter: the former gymnast told me she just made the Celtics Dunk Team.
Herman and Johnson stood among a pack of New England ninjas who have grown tight over the years. Many train and/or coach at Vitality Obstacle Fitness in Fall River, which has emerged as an elite ninja hot-spot. Many ninjas I’ve interviewed have praised Coach Jordan Thurston. And yes, Thurston made the trip from Fall River to Vegas for filming.
“Jordan is the best,” Meunier told me this week. “Ever since COVID hit, we’ve had a flood of elite talent at Vitality. People started going there as gyms opened back up, and ended up sticking with it after they learned how good Jordan’s coaching was. He’s leading us every step of the way. He knows exactly how to adapt to every one of his athletes, he knows exactly what they need.”
Johnson told me previously that the Vitality ninjas are tight, and show up for filming with a “strong base. There’s a lot of us. There’s a whole group of us who train in Fall River … Everyone knows our crew.”
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Rhode Island native Dillon recently moved to Florida, but “has ‘Vitality’ tatted on him. So he’s always Vitality,” Meunier told me with a laugh.
Ninja vet James “The Beast” McGrath, 38, a ninja coach in Plymouth, who competed this season, trains at Vitality with younger ninjas. The New Bedford resident told me at the start of this season that training “with a group of young people at the pinnacle of the sport — seeing what they’re doing — [got me] prepared for this new season.”
While Vitality is clearly a powerhouse, we have many ninja gyms in the state — one reason Massachusetts is such a powerhouse, Meunier theorizes.
If you watch the show, you know many ninjas train on homemade gyms, homemade obstacles, or start a gym of their own. Meanwhile, a quick Google search shows nearly two dozen pro ninja gyms in Massachusetts alone.
One of my favorite parts of the season, actually, was seeing the kids from Ascend Obstacle Training in Kingston watch their ninja coaches Lukas Reale and D’Amico. A group of lil’ Mass ninjas watched – at times in person, at times in a live camera feed from Kingston — all of them screaming like Christmas morning for their coaches. It was heartwarming to see the genuine love and camaraderie.
Meunier said that camaraderie and cheering section helped him in the finale.
“I had a big squad supporting me and that meant the world. It’s great to have the people behind you, especially the ones who see the training and your dedication and helped get you there,” he said. “That’s the great part about the ninja community: having each other’s backs.”
‘Electrician by day, ninja by night‘
I’ve watched Meunier grow from Old Colony Regional Vocational Technical High School senior student with potential to full-on electric Fairhaven electrician. He’s now an electrical apprentice for EAV solutions in Buzzards Bay.
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“I’m an electrical apprentice by day and ninja by night. I work my day-job then coach and train,” says Meunier, who turns 20 on Monday.
He had his work cut out for him this season with Beckstrand, a clear favorite to win.
“Going up against Kai was crazy, because I knew that he’d been doing really well,” Meunier said. His previous race that night was against another beast of a ninja, Kaden Lebsack.
“I was sick as a dog during this filming and so fatigued that I didn’t even know how I held on to the last handle to beat Kaden and clear the course when he fell,” Meunier told me. “I was just giving it all to God, no matter what happened, and leaving it in his hands.”
In the end, “I’m happy to do as well as I did and be up there with those final guys,” he said. “I told Kaden, Kai, and Isaiah [Thomas] when we made it to the Final Four: I feel like we all really earned our spot here. It’s cool to get to be a part of this together.”
I thought the new head-to-head format was exhilarating and upped the gasp-factor. I’m probably not alone — NBC already announced they’re keeping the racing format for season 18.
In track terms, the old version was like holding a 400-meter hurdles race by having each runner go one at a time, even if they walked over some hurdles, then seeing who had the fastest time at the end. This updated version is a full-on blazing sprint, where each athlete now has two obstacles: the hurdles, and their opponent. Plus we get to fill out brackets. #AugustMadness.
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As a competitor, of course, Meunier had to learn a new game:
“This was not the same competition. This was a complete [reinvention],” he said. “You used to have to attack obstacles. Now you also have to know your competitor, [and make race] strategies. It’s a whole new competition that was really exciting to participate in. I thought it was absolutely exciting to watch — all that matters is it was super exciting to watch.”
He didn’t host a watch party in Fairhaven on Monday, though.
“I’ll wait until I win,” he said with a laugh.
Lauren Daley can be reached at [email protected]. She tweets @laurendaley1, and Instagram at @laurendaley1. Read more stories on Facebook here.
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