It had been 1,096 days since Moorestown ninja Josiah Pippel previously conquered the $10,000 mega wall on NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior” (ANW) in 2022, but he did it again at the competition’s qualifier on June 8, earning him a coveted spot in the show’s regional finals.
As a six-time ANW veteran and a five-time ANW national finalist, Pippel has already seen a lot of success at just 20 years old. In 2019, he competed on the second season of “American Ninja Warrior Junior.” Two years later, he was the first person under the age of 19 to run the season 13 course and had the second-fastest time in the semifinal round, before making it to the last obstacle of stage two and then the national finals.
In the semifinals of season 14, Pippel made it to the last stage of the national finals, where he placed third on the rope climb. He conquered the third-to-last obstacle – Pizza Party – of season 16’s finals, but fell. He considers season 17 his worst, having lost to R.J. Roman in the round of 32 after falling on swinging frames. But Pippel emerged as the fastest ninja of season 18’s qualifier round, advancing to the regional finals.
He went straight to the competition’s newest challenge in season 18’s regional finals on June 22. At the Tripleheader – a new, supersized three-lane race course where ninjas go head to head in high-speed and side-by-side races – Pippel faced off against fellow competitors Nate Hansen and Deren Perez.
In just under 40 seconds, Pippel emerged victorious and is moving on to the national finals.
“A lot of it has to do with how the sport is growing,” he explained. “For my own training and for my own mental game, I really just focus on running my own race and not really paying attention to my competitors, but there is always that aspect of, if I do look over, it’s not just one person I have to pay attention to.
“There’s a third person, another point of reference, that I have to pay attention to.”
Aside from “ANW,” Pippel spearheads a new ninja league called Team Ninja Association (TNA). As its co-founder, he wears a lot of hats, from obstacle design to coordinating travel and booking vendors. Pippel enjoys woodworking and car restoration, and in 2023, bought a vehicle that crashed in his driveway. He is rebuilding it by learning from YouTube.
Although ninja has a lot of aspects to it, some of Pippel’s favorite things about the sport are the chance to meet other athletes through training, competition and TNA, as well as the sport’s constant growth.
“Pushing myself forward but also being able to push a sport forward and a community forward is really cool,” he enthused. “Don’t let failure stop you. We call ninja a fail sport, which means that you’re going to fail more often than not because of the nature of the sport and how technical the obstacles are.
“So don’t let failure stop you. Use it as part of your training to learn from and use it as a positive thing.”
Moorestown native Josiah Pippel (center) goes head to head with fellow competitors Nate Hansen (left) and Deren Perez during regional finals on NBC’s “American Ninja Warrior.” Pippel and Perez advanced to the show’s national finals.
