Crossroads

Crossroads, romanized as Crossroad (クロスロード) was the fourth obstacle in Second Adventure Stage on the first three VIKING tournaments. It was one of a few obstacles to feature choices as opposed to a single, linear challenge, with those choices being Survival Flag (サバイバルフラッグ) and Survival Jump (サバイバルジャンプ). While the obstacle was fairly formidable, it was removed due to a change in format in VIKING 4.

Survival Flag
Survival Flag (サバイバルフラッグ) consisted of pulling a weighted bag (30 kg in weight, reduced to 25 kg in VIKING 3) up a pole about 7.5 metres in height, musing a rope which controlled the exit. Once pulled up to the top, the competitor keeps the weight in place by securing the rope with a hook before advancing on. If the competitor was slow to hoist the bag, their time would be consumed mostly by this obstacle, leading to a few timeouts later at Heavenly Climb or increase the pressure for Tactical Parley. From the seven competitors who attempted Crossroads, five choose to attempt Survival Flag and all managed to clear it.

Survival Jump
Survival Jump (サバイバルジャンプ) consisted of running up to a trampoline to a rotating pole perpendicular to the run-up. While faster and seemingly the easier of the two choices, any slip-ups without excellent recovery would have spelled immediate disaster, probably the reason only two of the seven to attempt the Crossroads choose the Survival Jump. However, both of them cleared it.

Competitors' Success Rate

 * All results based on the Fuji TV broadcast and external information found.

Outside VIKING
While both of the obstacles never appeared anywhere outside VIKING, its concept of having competitors to choose between two different obstacles in the same position has been adopted in various international Ninja Warrior formats such as Ninja Israel, Ninja Warrior France, and more recently on American Ninja Warrior 13, calling the concept as the Split Decision, and on Australian Ninja Warrior 5.

On SASUKE Vietnam, the split-stage format was firstly appeared on the first season. The first two obstacles are the same, but the producers will decide which competitors run the right-handed course (Stage 1A part) or the left-handed course (Stage 1B part).