13-Year-Old Easton Girl To Compete on 'Ninja Warrior Junior'

EASTON, CT — A local middle school student will begin her run on the reality show "American Ninja Warrior Junior" on Friday night.

But for Jordan Carr, 13, a 7th grader at Helen Keller in Easton, a win in the TV competition will almost be anticlimactic. She already won the National Ninja League Championship in her age group when she was 12, in February.

Jordan didn't begin her sports career as a ninja (does anyone?), but instead had a passion for the slightly less esoteric competitive rock climbing, spraining fingers and scraping knees throughout the Northeast. While training at a rock climbing gym in Fairfield, she met fellow vertical enthusiast Joe Moravsky, who turned her attention to ninja sports.

Moravsky, a Monroe resident and the two-time winner on the granddaddy of all ninja sports programs, USA Network's "American Ninja Warrior," convinced her to apply for the "junior" version of that show in its first season. Jordan didn't make the cut, perhaps unprepared for the brutal vetting process through which the producers place applicants, her father, Brett, speculated.

"You had to show (producers) that you had skill for a ninja, and you were strong, and with good agility," Jordan said. "But because it was a TV show, they also wanted a story."

By the time she had applied for a slot on the show's sophomore season, she had a heck of a story.

At the end of 2018, Jordan broke two bones in her leg during a ninja competition in New Jersey. That happened while she was still climbing competitively, "and I had a couple of climbing competitions that I did not want to miss," she told Patch.

That's for sure: she competed with her leg in a cast at the New England Divisional Championships and still managed to finish in the top ten.

Jordan is a fan of ninja sports because "it's not the same thing over and over," she said. The course and obstacles change, and she is forever competing against her own previous personal best efforts.

"American Ninja Warrior Junior" airs Friday at 6 p.m. on Universal Kids on satellite and cable, and also can be seen streaming on Hulu.