MyKayla Skinner：American Ninja Warrior

MyKayla Skinner’s gymnastics career might be over, but she isn’t done with all competition just yet.

The Olympic silver medalist and former University of Utah great announced Friday afternoon on her YouTube channel that she will be competing on the newest season of “American Ninja Warrior” — Season 14 — alongside her husband Jonas Harmer.



The couple will be participating in an all new event: the Ninja Warrior couples’ competition.

Per SBNation, the competition will enable “many of the sport’s competitors to show off their combined skills as a team,” and will “utilize both partners’ strengths and some cold, hard cash will be on the line.”

Skinner and Harmer’s participation in the show is something of happenstance.

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Both had been interested in competing on the show for years, but when a possible opportunity arose following the Tokyo Olympics, Skinner declined.

“MyKayla and I thought about doing this a long time ago, before the Olympics. I was always a fan, and she said she’d think about it,” Harmer said in the video. “After the Olympics, it was a possibility, but she said no. She was retired and didn’t want to train for anything ever again.”

“Which is funny because I always wanted to be on ‘American Ninja Warrior,’” Skinner added, “but I kind of gave up on that.”

Harmer then made the decision to apply for the show on his own and a week ago received a call saying he had made it on. The next day, the show’s producer called, asking if Skinner would like to compete alongside her husband.

This time the answer was yes.

“They asked if MyKayla would do it, with the all new couples’ challenge, a separate couples thing, so now she’s doing it,” Harmer said.

Skinner was last in the national spotlight during the post-Olympics Gold Over America Tour, during which she traveled across the country, performing alongside Simone Biles, Jordan Chiles, Jade Carey and Grace McCallum, among others.