Yep, something like four or five salmon ladder qualifiers.
It’s not fully a week off. They did this last year, too. It’s some kind of clip show or something. Or maybe runs they didn’t show?
I understand the desire to go ever onward and upward, but we need to have a little perspective here. This is a competition where one tiny slipup anywhere ends it, so nothing is ever a sure thing. There were women who looked like they could’ve cleared Warped Wall (Graff was one of them) and just mistimed something or didn’t judge a distance correctly or lost the handle. Let’s not forget, too, that it’s only been VERY recently that we’ve had this breakthrough.
Look, the last thing this thing needs or wants is expectations. That is always the kiss of death. I can’t think of a single instance where expectations had any positive impact on sport or competitors. And expectation all to easily slips into entitlement, and when that happens, this sport is DEAD. You may be pondering at what point should ANW evolve from a fun, joyous, positive distraction; as far as I’m concerned, until we see some kind of prize structure, I don’t see any point for this evolution at all.
Results were a lot more spread out this time. Only 1 finisher (the first time this has happened since Venice Beach, surprisingly enough), with 2 clearing Globe Grasper, 4 clearing Tilting Frames, 4 clearing Salmon Ladder, and 4 clearing Warped Wall. Everyone who beat Warped Wall made it. (Kinda feel for Jason Cantu…he was the only one who failed Warped Wall the entire Cityfinals, and that’s what cost him a trip to Stage 1.) Of course, again perspective is called for, as five contestants who only beat the FOURTH obstacle got through. I mentioned before that the Cityfinals are the silly season, and, looking back on the results, this appears more true this year than ever.
Next week is the “best of” clip show, which NBC thinks we need for some weird reason. I have no faith that we’ll see anything new.
Hey, is it really just us four guys still talking about this?
Well, as a Giants fan, the expectations for the undefeated Patriots to win Superbowl 42 had a massively huge positive impact on that game for me. “18-1” is just about the most awesome thing ever.
That’s pretty much the opposite of your point, though, since the expectations certainly didn’t do the Patriots any favors. But it sure did make the Giants’ upset win so much sweeter, and it probably added to the fun of that game for spectators who didn’t particularly care about either team.
I used to love this show, but the last three weeks I haven’t even bothered to turn it on for the first hour. And I haven’t missed a successful run yet.
I think the city finals have been more interesting this year than in any previous year I’ve watched, largely because the invisible ladder is so brutal that even with the very top competitors there’s something to watch for, other than the ever-present “will he just screw up and fall off somewhere easy”.
This year there were fewer silly screwups among the top competitors (anyone well known other than Noah Kauffman?) but watching people give 100% on the invisible ladder and still come up short was pretty compelling.
I think the military competition was a lot more like previous seasons of the show. In the outside world, most people competing actually practice in ninja gyms now, so things like the warped wall and the salmon ladder are basically solved. I guess for the military guys there are a lot more of the old school “I’m very fit and a good climber, let me just try this stuff out” competitors. Which is just an odd juxtaposition, because they end up looking unfairly bad compared to the outside world. And it’s particularly odd as the last episode before the national finals.
I thought the military guys did well in the city finals. Quite a few did better than their non-finals performance and quite a few made it to the 2nd to last obstacle. Generally, the obstacle after the salmon ladders tends to be the fail point. What I find interesting about it is that in the city qualifications the military guys didn’t do so good (compared to other cities and in my purely subjective view). Which means that the cream of the crop of the military guys are quite good just based on fitness and whatever pass times they have (i.e. not doing ninja-type obstacles). I was expecting a complete disaster of an episode but I rather enjoyed it.
For example… did you see that guy doing the speed climbing. Holy carp!
Now on to the finals in two weeks! What surprises will be in store.
Can Graff become the first woman to finish Stage 1? I hope so, I like her. She seems to really have the Sasuke spirit. Go Graff!
Will this be the year somebody finishes? Not sure. People have been getting closer. I hope so. I really feel the show needs a winner!
Plus we know there are 10 wildcards (90 qualifiers, and they said there will be 100 competitors), so we assume that Meagan, Casey and Michelle will all be there. Of the four, I would rate their chances as Graff > Meagan > Casey > Michelle, but I think any of them could do it if the stars really aligned.
I’d like to see two people make stage 4 and then both fail stage 4, just for excitement and variety.
Note that stage 4 looks to be virtually impossible. Since we’ve never even been told the rules for any ANW stage 4, here are the various incarnations of the original Japanese show, listed chronologically:
[ul]
[li]49’ rope climb in 45 seconds, starting from seated position[/li][li]75’ combined spider climb and rope climb, 45 seconds total. (15 seconds for the spider climb portion, 30 seconds for the rope climb.)[/li][li]43’ invisible ladder followed by 33’ rope climb, 40 seconds total.[/li][li]66’ rope climb in 40 seconds.[/li][li]79’ combined spider climb and rope climb, 30 seconds total.[/ul][/li]
EDIT: My guess as to what the first ANW stage 4 will be: 75’ rope climb in 40 seconds. (The USA vs the World tiebreaker stage 4 was a 77’ rope climb, and both competitors finished in under 36 seconds.)
Hell - I could finish that in under 10 seconds…
…if by finished you mean laying on the ground looking up, wondering what the hell was I thinking …
Of course, it’s also very relevant how much time there is between stage 3 and stage 4. Presumably they don’t wait a week while the competitor totally regains their strength.
I’ve had this nagging suspicion since at least Houston, and now I’m completely certain of it: The reason for the switch to Invisible Ladder was so that Iseman and Gbajabiamila could scream into the mike for what seems like freaking hours.
Spider Climb was one of those either-you-got-it-or-you-don’t deals. A contestant had to get up expediently, before his stamina or grip gave out. If he couldn’t set a good pace right away, that was it. The longest I’d ever seen anyone on it was like 25 seconds. With Invisible Ladder, the going’s a lot slower, but because it’s easier to hang from two rings than get solid placement on two vertical surfaces, they can hang in there a lot longer.
And you can guess the result…
"DON’T GIVE UP!! WE WANT A FINISHER!! WHEN THE GOING GETS TOUGH, THE TOUGH GET GOING!! I FORBID YOU TO FAIL!! C’MON, NO QUIT, NO QUIT!! LOOK AT THAT!! HE’S FIGHTING, HE’S FIGHTING FOR ANY INCH, HE’S FIGHTING, FIGHTING, FIGHTING, FIGHTING!! WE WANT A FINISHER!! OHHHHH, LOOK AT THAT!! WOWWWW!! WOWWWWWW!! CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT!! WOWWWWWW!! WE WANT A FINISHER!! C’MON MAN, DO IT FOR THE KIDS!! DID I MENTION THAT WE WANT A FINISHER!! OH, WHAT THE HECK, WE WANT A FINISHER!!"
Yeah…definitely going to watch the prelims on mute next year. Hoping it doesn’t reach the point where I have to watch the whole thing on mute. Yeah. Really hoping.
Ellis Dee - And that’s why I don’t follow football.
Well, okay, there are a bunch of other reasons, but that’s solidly in the top 10.
Be interested to see if anyone makes it to Stage 4 this time. Just how formidable do they have to make it so that it’s actually harder than Stage 3?
I don’t follow. One of your top 10 reasons you don’t follow football is because an undefeated team is considered a heavy favorite?
Just wondering, about the Invisible ladder: it seems like everyone is trying to do it by, basically, doing one-armed pullups on alternating sides. Would it be possible to tackle it more like the salmon ladder? As in, jerk up fast with both arms then immediately extend the arms upward for the spring(?) to reel in the slack? And then repeat a whole bunch of times.
But maybe whatever the mechanism is wouldn’t take up the slack fast enough to let you keep most of the distance you’ve pulled your body up.
It seems that you can only do one side at a time - the ones that have been successful take longer strides quicker - if you make them too short, you’ll burn out quicker.
Yeah, I don’t get this strategy at all. Putting almost all of the successful runs at the end, EVERY WEEK, removes all of the suspense.
That technique surely works. Meaning the slack is taken up quickly enough, yes. Pretty much everyone who we’ve seen fail at the invisible ladder has reverted to a modified salmon ladder approach when their arms pump out, jerking their entire body to keep salmon-ladder-hopping up the rings.
I think only one guy who had to resort to this was successful, though.
I was posting more earlier in the thread, but then at some point managed to get 2-3 weeks behind on the DVR and have never managed to get caught up again.
I do enjoy reading the discussion after I’ve gone back and watched the shows. Maybe I’ll get caught up in time for Vegas!
To clear up any misconception, I believe that the city preliminaries and finals, as well as the Vegas finals, are shot across consecutive nights (they are just shown out of order in the broadcast). It’s way cheaper than setting up and tearing down the course twice in the same location. This is why they end the city prelims at the Warped Wall–it’s easier to hide the Salmon Ladder.
Part of the allure of the Japanese version (including the fact that it was guys with regular jobs) is that they usually shoot the entire thing in one day. Stage 4, which would be fairly easy for many competitors to complete at the start of a day, is failed often due to fatigue.
Oh, I definitely agree that’s how they’ll do it. But even so, there’s a big difference between a 10 minute wait and an hour wait and a 5 hour wait.
I thought I saw that the only finisher was doing the globes by holding onto the stalks and not the globes themselves. It seems a lot easier that way. Anybody else see that?