Toulouse's Benyamine qualified for the Ninja Warrior final.

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Laurent Vu - TF1

  • Benyamine, a 25-year-old Toulouse resident, will participate this Saturday in the grand finale of the TF1 game “Ninja Warrior”.

  • His appearance on the show surprised those around him, in particular at the night stop in Toulouse, where he takes care of the homeless.

  • The one who a back disease prevented from realizing the dream of being a firefighter, takes, modestly, a revenge on life.

Now, at the Toulouse night stop, where the homeless come to seek comfort, he is called "champion" and his colleagues organize bets based on lemon tarts.

Last Saturday, the discreet Benyamine surprised everyone by bursting the screen in TF1's “Ninja Warrior” game.

He managed, by twirling between the obstacles, and especially by crossing the "mega-wall", to qualify directly for the final of this Saturday, January 30.

“Frankly, in the back of my mind, I said to myself that I was capable of it,” says the 25-year-old socio-cultural facilitator.

But not to the point of telling anyone before the late August shoot where he was going to exercise his athletic talents.

In family or at work, he spared the element of surprise until the release of the teaser.

But for the qualification, protected and close, were in front of their screens, to hear him dedicate his success to the residents of the night stop.

"They are so proud, that I still shudder," says the bachelor.

Revenge on a broken dream

So, how do you integrate the cream of the Ninjas Warrior?

"By playing soccer, talking to each other," modestly replies the bachelor not really the type to lift dumbbells on his way home at night.

But Benyamine also owes his amazing back muscles to a twist of fate.

Because he dreamed, "since college", to be a Paris firefighter.

He even passed the competition and integrated the training.

It was a medical exam, an X-ray showing severe scoliosis, that “broke the myth” and put an end to his career hopes.

From this disillusion, he made a strength.

To heal and re-educate himself, he took up Parkour, this freestyle discipline consisting of overcoming urban or natural obstacles.

An asset in the game, where its main difficulty was not the torture of the bars but to tame the “enormous stress” of the TV set.

Of course, everyone has been trying for several days to pull the worms out of him about the outcome of the final.

But Benyamine is holding on, he is playing along. All he can say is that he is ready to repeat the experience and appear in the next season of "Ninja Warrior".

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  • Toulouse

  • Homeless

  • Ninja

  • Television