Jessie Graff

Early life

Jessie Graff was born to Ginny MacColl on January 12, 1984.

At age 6, Graff started taking circus classes. She started doing gymnastics at age 9 and did competitive gymnastics for 6 years. She was a member of the Frederick Gymnastic Club for 6 years. By age 12 she was catching other performers on the trapeze. She has stated about her time as a 12-year-old trapeze artist, "The rule was I wasn’t allowed to catch anyone who outweighed me by more than 20 pounds."

Graff was a pole vaulter in high school, and graduated in 2002 from Urbana High School, Frederick, Maryland, as a Track Team Leader, honor roll student, and member of National Honor Society.

She majored in aerospace engineering at Georgia Tech, and theatre at the University of Nebraska. She graduated from University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) in 2007.

She has earned black belts in Taekwondo and Kung Fu.

Collegiate sports career

Graff is 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) tall. In 2004, she set her personal best (PB) in the 5000m run at 15:56.30; she set her outdoor pole vault PB at 4.17 m (13 ft 8 in); and indoor pole vault PB at 4.20 m (13 ft 9 in). Graff held the pole vault record at Georgia Tech and University of Nebraska.

Stuntwoman career

Graff started doing stunt work in 1997, and has appeared in several television shows and movies, including X-Men: First Class, Make It or Break It, Another Period, Bridesmaids, Knight and Day, Bad Teacher, John Carter, Leverage, and Sons of Anarchy.

As a stuntwoman she has done tumbling on Make It or Break It, trampolined on Another Period and has done many stunts on rooftops, the sides of bridges or buildings and dramatic wipeouts. She has said she continues to learn new skills from other stunt people who specialize in different areas.

As of 2016 her most recent high-profile stunt work has been for the CBS/CW series Supergirl.

Obstacle competitor career

Graff was a contestant on the comically-oriented obstacle course show Wipeout's tenth episode of its first season in 2008. In that appearance, she finished second in the qualifier round (successfully navigating most of it, including a traversal of Big Balls), second again on the next round, but fell in the penultimate round and thus did not make it to the Wipeout Zone.

On season 5 (2013) of American Ninja Warrior (ANW), she became the first woman to qualify to compete in a City Finals course (although she did not complete the qualifier course).

In season 6 (2014) of American Ninja Warrior she could not compete because she had torn her ACL, TCL, and her meniscus. In the season 7 (2015) she appeared at Stage One in Las Vegas and got past the first few obstacles, but she could not make it up the warped wall.

In season 8, in the Los Angeles qualifying round, she became the first woman in American Ninja Warrior history to make it up the new 14 1/2-foot Warped Wall and moved on to the city finals along with professional rock climber Natalie Duran. This was the first time two women made it into the Top 30. In the Los Angeles city finals, Graff did not complete the course but finished second overall based on the show's "the farthest the fastest" metric. This broke her own record for the highest finish by a woman in a city competition through 2016. Kacy Catanzaro remains the only woman to complete a city finals course, although her overall placement that night was less than Graff's mark.

At the season 8 national finals at Mt. Midoriyama, Graff became the first woman to ever completed Stage 1, finishing fourth overall. She had 12.39 seconds to spare out of a 2:20 minute time limit and was also the first woman to ever ascend the Warped Wall on Stage 1 in Las Vegas, which has a shorter run-up than the regular one. A stop-motion LEGO video was released soon after her win, which was inspired by her performance in this race. Following the runs of the second week's group of Stage 1 competitors, Graff was in 5th place overall of 90 competitors, with only 17 of them able to finish and move on (a record low for the competition, indicating the difficulty of the course). On Stage 2, which proved difficult for all competitors and surrendered only two finishers, Graff staged a credible run, struggling a bit on the Giant Ring Swing, powering her way through the Down Up Salmon Ladder, but then fell off the Wave Runner when attempting the transition between its two boards, one of several athletes to go out in that manner.

In 2017 she became the first woman to compete in, and to successfully finish, Stage 2 in Las Vegas, although this was part of the USA vs. The World competition instead of a regular season, and had no time requirement. She was the first woman representing the United States in that competition.

In the 2017 regular season, American Ninja Warrior season 9, she had a relatively disappointing performance in the Daytona city qualifier, when she fell on the 5th obstacle, the notoriously difficult-for-women Rolling Thunder. However she adopted a quicker approach to it during the city finals and got past it, then got past all of the back half obstacles until the 10th and final Elevator Climb, when she ran out of energy halfway up. Overall she finished 4th out of all the athletes competing in this city finals. Also, she went on to compete in Sasuke 34, the original Japanese version of ANW.

Competitions

Honors