Austin Gray

Austin Gray is a Ninja coach from Longmont, Colorado. Prior to competing, Gray had given away one of his kidneys to his lifelong friend, Kaylee Adams. Kaylee had suffered from focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. It is caused by scar tissue in the filtering unit of the kidney.

His motto is "Share Your Spare" to encourage kidney donation.

American Ninja Warrior 10
Austin first competed in Minneapolis in American Ninja Warrior 10. In qualifying, he failed to scale the Mega Wall, and was also unable to scale the regular Warped Wall. He still advanced to the city finals, placing 15th.

In the city finals, his run was digested but he fell on Iron Maiden and missed out on hitting the buzzer again. He still placed 12th overall and moved on to the national finals.

In the national finals, Austin ended up hitting his very first buzzer, finishing Stage 1 with 33.89 seconds left. He was also the first person that night to do i, as well as the first to hit a buzzer on Stage 1 during that season altogether.

However, on Stage 2, his season ended on Deja Vu, mainly due to him expanding too much energy on Epic Catch and Release.

American Ninja Warrior 11
He returned in Tacoma for his sophomore season. He was expected by several to go farther after a breakout rookie year. However, in a shocking disbelief, he stumbled on Broken Bridge, and was unable to recover, quickly ending his sophomore season.

American Ninja Warrior 12
Austin Gray came back to compete in his third year of American Ninja Warrior and has yet to complete the qualifying round. He was invited by veteran Lorin Ball this season. This was accomplished when he completed the course, placing fourth despite failing the Mega Wall.

In the semi-finals, he completed the course with the 3rd fastest time of the night.

In the finals, he flew through the new obstacles to once again fly through the Spider Trap and that was enough over the two nights to race on the Power Tower playoffs, placing 5th.

In the first matchup, Gray competed against Najee Richardson, but in one of the biggest shocks of the season, Austin won then moving onto the second round. He then went up against Amir Malik in the second matchup, then he won that round to make it to the championship. In the Championship round he was going against Daniel Gil in the quest of $100,000. But Gil completed the Tower faster than him, making Gil the champion of the season, thus making Gray the runner-up of the season.

American Ninja Warrior 13
He returned to compete for his fourth season, participating in the fourth qualifying round. His run was digested, but it was shown that he failed Pretzel Twist, like many others. He still advanced to the semi-finals by placing 14th. He later competed in the last semi-finals episode. There, he once again cleared the semi-final course, and since he did it with the second fastest time, he was able to go to the Power Tower and race against Jake Murray. He won the race after Jake tried to go sideways on the shelf to catch up with him, and thus he got the Safety Pass.

In the national finals, his stage 1 run was digested, but he cleared the course with over 20 seconds to spare. Then, in the second stage, he managed to get past the third obstacle this time around, and was one of just four competitors to clear the second stage. It is also worth noting that he was the only Safety Pass winner who didn't need to use it that season.

On stage 3, he was looking strong, but he nearly failed on Pipe Dream when the wall tipped back on him and he had to recover. He later failed on Eyeglass Alley, when he could not transfer the second eyeglass to one of the hooks, and thus running out of energy, ending his breakout season. Since he got to the obstacle faster than Vance Walker, but was bested by Kaden Lebsack (who went on to complete stage 3), he ultimately became the runner-up of this season once again. He was also the top veteran of the season as well.

Trivia

 * Gray is one of two competitors in American Ninja Warrior 10 to fail the Warped Wall in qualifying, with the other being Venn Johns. In both cases, this was due to the rule that season that failing to scale the Mega Wall would result in only one attempt on the 14'6 wall, which both were unable to do.
 * He is the second competitor who did not need to use the Safety Pass on either Stage 1 or 2, the first being Michael Torres (ANW11) as well has having the second chance advantage being voided by Charle Robbins (AuNW4) and Zak Stolz (AuNW4)
 * He is the first ninja on American Ninja Warrior to be runner-up two seasons in a row but only the second ever.
 * Austin is the first ninja to clear the ANW12 version of the Falling Shelves and the ANW13 version of the Falling Shelves on Stage 2.