Llanera became a walk-on to walk-ons

Getting a spot on American Ninja Warrior can be challenging, but for Elizer John Llanera, it was a simple question, “Who are you guys?”

Llannera, a Dayton Beach native, went to his local park where he usually does calisthenics.

Upon arrival, Llannera was curious when he saw a bunch of people training on the slack line and monkey bars while making videos.

“I decided to go talk to them, asked them what's going on,” Llanera said. “They told me they are training for American Ninja Warrior and me being a fan of the show, I immediately told them I want to join. They looked at me as if I was joking with them because never in the history of walk-ons has this happened before.” Llanera pushed to show his commitment to the group. “I showed them what I was capable of, so right away they told me what the requirements of being a walk on were,” Llannera said. “I had to be at the park [from] 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. for almost three weeks. If I could do that, I would be number 15 on the walk-on list which is pushing it because they rarely let any walk-ons run the course that's around or past that number.”

Before being able to commit the time, Llanera had to check with his employer at Wayne’s World of House Amusements.

“I told him I couldn’t miss this opportunity even if it’s not for sure I’ll be on TV,” Llanera said. “So we decided I’d be working from 6 a.m. [until] 9 a.m., which gave me a one hour window to head to the park to train with the rest of the walk-ons from 10am-5pm. And after all that go back to work from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m.”

Three weeks went by with Llanera, working 16-hour days, but finally the day had come.

With walk-ons having to be at the course by 4 p.m., 12 hours had gone by and Llanera had yet to have his name called.

“I started feeling sad and disappointed from everything I've gone through just for nothing,” Llanera said. “So I decided to work out to get some stress off my chest. In the middle of my workout around 5:30 a.m., I was told by the producer to get ready, you are running the course.”

Although he got eliminated from the course early, the opportunity was the only thing that mattered.

“When I walked up those stairs for the first obstacle, only one thing mattered at that moment, it was what was in front of me,” Llanera said.