Zoe Featonby gave it her all on Australian Ninja Warrior last night and it was nearly enough for the semi-finals.
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The pole dancing star jumped onto our TV screens on Monday night when she appeared in the final heat of Australian Ninja Warrior on Channel Nine.
Zoe easily leapt through three sets of obstacles and needed to get as far as the swing cycle to make it to the leader board and the semis.
“I somehow knew the upper body and core strength I'd developed on the pole would be a useful weapon."
Her support crew egged Zoe on knowing how hard she’d worked: “This is yours Zoe, this is yours! You’ve worked hard baby.”
Improving her core strength was crucial to beating the Ninja Warrior's obstacles – and life generally given Zoe’s major operation to combat scoliosis when she was a teenager leaving her with a titanium rod in her spine.
“The one thing my doctor told me to do was to strengthen my core,” she said.
“Because my back would be quite weak, I had to have a really strong core to compensate for that - so I took up pole dancing.
"I was always one to push the boundaries," she said.
"I went back to netball after nine months and that was earlier than my surgeon wanted me to.”
Her sheer determination was what enabled her to reduce her recovery time after the anterior fusion, her father Greg Featonby said.
“It's unbelievable, what she's achieved since the operation is inspirational,” he said.
“When she went in for it, we really didn't know what the outcome would be, whether she would be able to compete in sport again.
“She was determined to prove everyone wrong.”
A true warrior, Zoe has.