by Tim Gourlay, Founder • Fitset Ninja
There is a very good chance your kid already knows about it. They may have watched it on YouTube, begged you to build a warped wall in the backyard, or swung from the monkey bars at the playground while yelling something about ‘Stage Three’. But in case you missed it: ninja obstacle sport is one of the fastest-growing youth sports in North America, and in 2028, it will make its Olympic debut.
Here is the story of how a quirky Japanese game show became a global sport, and why your seven-year-old might be training for the Olympics before your teenager finishes high school.
It Started with 100 Competitors and a Mud Pit
In 1997, a Japanese television producer named Ushio Higuchi launched a show called Sasuke on Tokyo Broadcasting System (TBS). The concept was simple and brutal: 100 competitors attempted a four-stage obstacle course, and nearly all of them failed. The course featured balance obstacles, rope climbs, wall jumps, and a towering final stage that almost nobody could complete. It was equal parts athletic competition and entertainment spectacle, and Japanese audiences were hooked.
The show ran semi-annually, and its stars became household names in Japan. Fishermen, firefighters, gas station attendants, and gymnasts all competed, and the course was so difficult that in its first 27 years, only a handful of people ever finished it. But there was something magnetic about watching ordinary people attempt extraordinary things, and the show quietly built a massive international following.
From Late-Night Cable to Prime Time
In 2006, edited versions of Sasuke began airing on the American cable channel G4 under the name Ninja Warrior. It developed a cult following almost overnight, with marathon weekend screenings drawing surprisingly large audiences for a small network. By 2009, the channel launched American Ninja Warrior, an American adaptation that sent top competitors to Japan to take on the original course.
Then something happened that nobody predicted. NBC picked up the show, moved it to prime time, and ratings went through the roof. Suddenly, millions of families were gathering around the television on Monday nights to watch athletes tackle warped walls, salmon ladders, and hanging obstacles. The show has now run for 17 seasons and counting, and it airs in Canada on CTV.
But the real revolution was not happening on television. It was happening in converted warehouses, gymnastics facilities, and purpose-built ninja gyms across the continent.
From TV Show to Real Sport
Here is the part that surprises most people: while the TV show was entertaining millions, the sport itself was growing even faster off-screen. Fans who watched the show did not just want to spectate. They wanted to try it. Parents whose kids were captivated by the athletes on screen started looking for a place to train, and entrepreneurs responded.
In 2015, there were maybe a dozen ninja gyms in the entire United States. Today, there are nearly 400, and that number is still climbing. Canada has seen similar growth, with dedicated ninja facilities now operating in provinces from British Columbia to Ontario. Multiple competitive leagues have formed, including the World Ninja League, the Ultimate Ninja Athlete Association (UNAA), and the Federation of International Ninja Athletics (FINA), along with regional organizations like the Canadian Ninja League.
These are not backyard setups. These are full-scale competitive organizations with standardized rules, tiered divisions, regional qualifying events, and annual world championships held in major convention centres and exposition halls.
A Sport Built for Kids
And here is what might surprise you most: the athletes driving this sport’s growth are not the adults you see on television. They are kids.
Youth athletes now account for over 70% of competitive ninja participation. Kids as young as six and seven are competing in organized leagues, running courses with 10 to 20 obstacles, and qualifying for regional and world championships. The World Ninja League alone has grown from 12 affiliate gyms in its first season to over 80 facilities across 27 states and 6 countries, and the vast majority of its athletes are under 17.
Imagine a 7 year old standing at the start of a course inside a packed exposition hall, hundreds of spectators cheering from the bleachers, running a sequence of obstacles that test grip strength, balance, agility, and problem-solving, and then slapping the buzzer at the end. That is happening right now, in cities across North America.
What makes ninja particularly compelling for kids is the nature of the challenge itself. Unlike traditional team sports where playing time and positions can be competitive, ninja is fundamentally individual. Every athlete runs their own course. The competition is not really against other kids. It is against the obstacles. It is you versus the course, and the only way forward is to try, fail, learn, and try again. That framework builds something deeper than athletic skill. It builds resilience.
Parents often tell us that what drew their kids to ninja was the physical challenge, but what kept them was the confidence they built along the way.
A child who could not grip the rings in September is clearing them by December, and they know exactly how they got there: through effort, repetition, and the willingness to fall and get back up.
The Olympic Moment
Now, the sport is on the verge of its biggest milestone yet.
In late 2023, the International Olympic Committee confirmed that obstacle racing, inspired directly by the Sasuke/Ninja Warrior format, would replace equestrian as one of the five disciplines in the modern pentathlon at the Los Angeles 2028 Olympic Games. The new event features a head-to-head sprint over a 70-metre course with eight obstacles, and elite athletes are completing it in 25 to 35 adrenaline-packed seconds.
Modern pentathlon has been part of every Summer Olympics since 1912, when it was introduced by Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games. The discipline was originally designed to test the skills of a well-rounded soldier: fencing, swimming, shooting, running, and horse riding. But after a controversy involving animal welfare at the Tokyo 2020 Games, the governing body evaluated 62 proposals and ultimately chose obstacle racing as the replacement.
Los Angeles, fittingly, is the city where American Ninja Warrior is filmed.
And the community is not stopping there. Organizations in Australia, the United States, and around the world are already campaigning for obstacle sport to be included as a standalone Olympic event at the Brisbane 2032 Games. That would mean dedicated ninja athletes, not just pentathletes, could compete for Olympic medals in the sport they have been training for their entire lives.
What it Means for Families
If you are a parent reading this, here is the bottom line: ninja obstacle sport is no longer a novelty. It is a real, organized, growing sport with structured pathways from beginner classes to world championships, and now, to the Olympic Games.
It is a sport that welcomes every body type, every fitness level, and every personality. It does not require years of prior athletic training to start, and it rewards effort and persistence as much as raw talent. Kids who never quite found their fit in soccer or hockey or gymnastics are discovering that they love swinging from bars, scaling walls, and testing their balance on obstacles that look impossible until they are not.
Whether your child ends up competing at worlds or just having an absolute blast swinging around a gym on a Saturday afternoon, ninja sport has something to offer. And if you tune in to the LA 2028 Olympics, you will see this sport on the world’s biggest stage for the very first time.
My advice? Do not wait for the Olympics. Get your kids on a course now. By the time 2028 rolls around, they will be cheering for athletes who do exactly what they do every week, and dreaming about what 2032 might look like.
Tim Gourlay is the founder of Fitset Ninja, a Canadian ninja obstacle sport company with facilities in Edmonton and Calgary and a new location opening in the Okanagan.