'American Ninja Warrior' Vance Walker on his historic and 'absolutely terrifying' second win

[Music] welcome to Gold Derby I'm senior editor Denton Davidson here with Vance Walker the1 Million winner of American Ninja Warrior and this is not a rerun Vance you won again first two time champion and winner of the of the million talk about that time that you found out that you were the champion again maybe a little less tiar than than the first time around yeah the first one was definitely a little more meaningful just because it was my first time Ever Getting to stage four my first time ever conquering stage 4 and that was the thing that I had been working for my entire career so doing it again was awesome but it could never be as emotional as the first time but it was still awesome and it was absolutely terrifying going third and I had two people run after me with Caleb getting up the rope and I assumed that since last season he didn't get up the rope that he wouldn't that time either and so when I did hit the buzzer I was like okay well I'm pretty sure I won so I didn't really keep track of what my time was and then after went I saw that he had a couple seconds left and I turned to the crowd and I'm like did I just lose like I didn't know whose time was faster and we actually didn't know until they announced it at the top I didn't know either so a lot of the crowd was thinking did he just beat Vance and we were all like everyone was confused and didn't know what had just happened so until Matt noar announced that his time was a second slower I didn't know that I even wanton it yet so how long did that actually take so you don't have a clock like next to the rope that everyone is is watching they have there's the clock on the actual Tower but everyone was just paying attention to if somebody would get it in the first place instead of what our actual times were so it was a little bit different than if it was like showing everybody's times on a screen and seeing what everybody's times were compared to each other well it's pretty incredible because I mean we've seen the greatest ninjas go out even on stage one because it just takes one little misstep so how are you able to stay so consistent and and make it through all of these stages now back to back it's it's crazy yeah that is a great question that's the hardest part about the sport is if you fall once you're most likely out unless you have a safety Pass unless you've earned something that gets you another shot if you fall once it's over and you have to clear every single stage to end up winning the million dollars so it's very difficult and it is really hard to stay consistent I've been lucky enough to have really good training Partners really good gyms to train at but actually season 14 I didn't hit a single buzzer and that was the year before I won and that was right after my home gym is shut down I moved moved all the way to Houston to train for That season and that year I didn't have that consistency I fell three times into the water and didn't hit a single buzzer so the consistency is definitely the hardest part and I moved down to Florida started training with Caleb so we were actually training partners for season 15 and 16 so it was awesome to be able to do that together but yeah the consistency is the hardest part and I think just training those specific courses those specific obstacles and setting up the closest replicas you possibly can and even random stuff that you've never seen before just to prepare for any possibility any were actually cleaner this year than last year in in many ways cuz last year you actually ended up losing around and then making it by time so that had to be a little gratifying is I mean it was just clean buzzer after buzzer this season yeah I definitely wanted that perfect season in season 15 I fell on my first race on stage two me and Ethan both got to the last off schol and we knew at that point that we were both guaranteed if we didn't win to get the runoff race and I was pretty sure that one of us was still going to win that one if we got there so we both tried to send the link both ended up missing it and he just got there a little bit faster so it was nice to get back and actually get the clear on the first run that time the only thing you haven't that you didn't get this season was the Mega wall so you still have something to shoot for at least yeah I got the mega wall back in season 13 but that's the only thing that I haven't done twice now I've gotten first in qualifiers twice I've gotten first in semies twice I won Junior twice I Got the Power Tower twice I've won the million dollars twice but I can't get that Mega wall again so well you lost 20,000 but you got a million so I think it all it all um how much time do you get between stage three and mount madori because stage three looks so physically exhausting on the upper body and then to have to go straight into the 75 foot rope climb that seems difficult so how what is the time you get yeah it depends on the season so back in season 15 the schedule it films over three days so the schedule was stage one on the first day stage two on the second day and then three and four the next day and between then I ran second on stage three so I probably had about two three hours between and then season 16 it was stage one then two and three then four in the Women's Championship so I had the whole entire night to rest going into that one but it it definitely depends on the season it depends on how many people make it through too because since there were eight people on season 15 they had to get it over with as fast as they could so it definitely depends on the season but even with overnight rest with it being in Vegas with the lack of sleep because we finish and leave set after sunrise and we have to be down bicep before like way before we actually start filming so we're probably getting 3 hours of sleep so it's not even recovery time if it's the next day what obstacle do you fear the most or what like when something's in front of you what's the what's the most dangerous I think for me the obstacle I fear the most is the jumping spider and that's what took me out in season 14 sadly that kept me from having the three feet but yeah I think that's definitely the hardest for me just because my hips are not flexible with the CP I am always no matter how much I stretch going to be a little inconsistent at off school which you could see cuz I fell on it before but that's definitely my least favorite I think this season excluding that was definitely the pizza party that being in stage three with that technical of an obstacle was absolutely terrifying well one of the highlights for me this season was your race with Flip Rodriguez because you know flip he's one of my favorites I because I go way back to the beginning of the show so watching that and I'm sure you watched him as a as as a kid what was it like to race him in that moment it was really fun it was terrifying because I've seen him on the show since I started watching back in season 7 and he uh he's always been insanely fast but also he had only cleared stage two once going into that race and I'm also a little bit inconsistent at stage two the year before I fell on my first race trying to link and on my first season season 13 I had to use the safety pass so I'm also a little bit inconsistent to so I know that we both could clear and I know that we could both do it quickly and luckily we both ended up clearing but it was it was it came down to a matter of speed and I had to go faster than to get it so it was definitely scary but it was it was really fun at the same time do you like the racing or do you prefer to like stage three or sort of at your own pace you just know finish what's your preference I definitely love stage three that's always been my best Stage I sadly felt it in season 13 which shouldn't have happened but I uh that's that's always been my favorite stage stage three is always the thing that I've loved the most I actually used to love the old semi-finals format the most too that would be something that I would train basically every single day with those super long and just intense endurance courses that's always been my favorite and I've always been the best at the pump endurance and the long courses rather than the speed but I can be fast if I have to but I I definitely love those longer courses so what's changed the most for you over the last year I understand you move made the moved to Florida so who are you surrounding yourself with who are you training with and and and how what does that look like on like a daily or yearly basis yeah so I'm training with the Bergstrom with Enzo D Ferrari Wilson Electric Enzo with the cake ninja with RJ too he's down in uh he's in Jacksonville now but he still comes down every once in a while to train so I'm with the whole entire Florida Squad and it's an amazing training group like you see Last year me naxa Caleb and RJ half of the people on stage four four out of the eight were from that Florida training Squad this year three out of five because it was still me Caleb and NAA out of the five of us so you can see that group is absolutely stacked and that's those are the people I'm surrounding myself with you have to surround your people you have to surround yourself with people that want to achieve that success if you also want to achieve that success so it's been a really cool group to train with and I'm sure winning the prize money frees you up a little bit to be able to train yeah um what did you do with the first million and what are you going to do with the second mli did you mentioned the Rolls-Royce are you getting a Rolls-Royce or a house see that's the thing is I said that before I learned about taxes in the IRS so I definitely be holding off for now maybe one day that is my eventual dream car but I did get a very dumb down version of that Rolls-Royce is owned by BMW and I got a nice uh BMW 4 Series convertible so I wanted the Rolls-Royce Dawn which is their convertible I got got a much much cheaper version of that so that's what I'm rocking with for right now but I put most of that into Investments and I'm going to do the same thing with with this check so we've seen a lot of Olympians join uh American Ninja warri former Olympians which I think really is a credit to like how EXT how much skill it takes to do this Sport and they also have like all failed most mostly so that I mean it shows how difficult it is and and it's a very specific sport what would you think about this becoming Olympic sport I mean we have skateboarding we have breaking so why not ninja yeah I think that would be awesome and I would love to be in the Olympics one day it depends on what they actually choose to put in the Olympics because there's so many different challenges whether it's the courses themselves like the mount madori Yama format with the four stages or they could do the racing or they could even do specific obstacles like the super salmon ladder that would easily be able to be its own event in the Olympics and I would love to be a part of that so it definitely depends on which thing they decide to put in but yeah I think any n in the Olympics at all would be amazing and I definitely want to be a part of that well we have seen USA versus the world and it is a worldwide sport how many competitions do you compete in every year because we all see this big TV show but what is your regular life like like your day-to-day schedule in terms of competitions and actually competing yeah so since I won I've definitely dialed it back a little bit and I've still been traveling a lot but it's been a lot less for competitions and more vacation and just meeting up with friends training with friends and going to other people's gyms just to train rather than to compete but a couple years ago I was going me and my mom were going like basically every other weekend like I think we went 12 out of 15 weekends during the competition season Once to different competitions over the country went to Ohio we went to Connecticut they're mostly on the East Coast but I even went to California and San Francisco for some comps and it's just traveling all over the place I've dialed it back a little bit but in the actual training season it can get like basically every single weekend you're in a different state and you've been a great uh Advocate and role model for anyone living with cable paly what what's how is that going on that front are you able to get out to events and and how has that impacted uh your life and and having this platform now yeah so we're about to start filming season 17 and I'm actually teaming up with Michelle warkey and we're making some uh we're making some shirts that we're going to pass out this season and be wearing them on uh on season 17 of the show and we're going to focus my story for season 17 really on cerebral poliy early awareness and just making sure that people just get their kids checked on as early as possible because early intervention can make a huge difference I luckily back when I got diagnosed it was 17 months and the limit back then was you had to be 18 months to even get tested for these things but my mom was like no we can tell something's wrong and I got it even a month before that and just as early as you can cash it that can make it so much better because it's the the damage has already done it's neur ological damage but you can keep it from getting worse you can keep the muscles from getting tighter so I can never be more flexible and I can never do more than I can right now but the braces are to keep it from getting worse and the stretching is to keep it from getting even tighter so I definitely think I want to do a lot with early adoption and also we're going to start selling those shirts and all the proceeds are going to go to I haven't decided exactly which charity yet but we're going to be trying to raise some money for one of the CP charity soon well Vance congratulations on the repeat we'll look forward to season 17 Maybe will see a three pets but you've already you've already made history so congratulations thank you appreciate it [Music]