The TV peak for “American Ninja Warrior” has passed. But Colorado’s young stars are growing the sport off screen.

How it started: Nine-year-old Kaden Lebsack idly flips through TV channels. Somewhere amid the cartoons and sitcoms, he’s transfixed by images of lithe men and women propelling themselves across an elevated sequence of precarious handholds and narrow ledges, with humiliation waiting in a splash pool below. A clock ticks relentlessly as competitors fly across this fiendishly fun playground with strength, skill and creativity.

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