{"id":95527,"date":"2026-01-10T03:47:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:47:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95527\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T03:47:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:47:08","slug":"exclusive-rock-climber-takes-home-gold-in-middle-of-the-night-fare-evasion-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/95527\/","title":{"rendered":"Exclusive | Rock climber takes home gold in middle-of-the-night Fare Evasion Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

These fare hoppers going for the long jump!<\/p>\n

A ragtag group of quirky jocks leaped over the MTA\u2019s new subway turnstile gates at an event dubbed the \u201cFare Evasion Olympics\u201d \u2014 to prove how wildly ineffective the taller paneled doors are.<\/a><\/p>\n

A pole dancer, a rock climber and parkour-lover channeled their inner gold medalist as they took running jumps to soar over the 6-foot-tall doors the transit agency hopes will finally outsmart fare beaters at the Broadway-Lafayette St station in Manhattan.<\/p>\n

A Fare Evasion Olympics took place in the middle of the night Thursday. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s still incredibly beatable. It\u2019s not really effective, it\u2019s just expensive,\u201d said Danny Fisher, a self-admitted fare evader who spearheaded the middle-of-the-night \u201cOlympic event\u201d Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cA few weeks ago, I saw a video of a little girl getting her neck caught in one. That\u2019s so insane, these things are really crazy!\u201d he continued, referring to the disturbing incident that sent the kid to the hospital last month. <\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t care that it\u2019s ineffective \u2014 I want to evade the fare. I think it proves that it\u2019s a waste of money and they\u2019re hurting people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wild footage shows one participant dressed in a full-body bunny costume and clutching an Olympic-style torch as the contestants bolted into the subway station to jump the turnstile.<\/p>\n

A rock climber, left, parkour athlete and pole dancer put their skills to the test to climb the new turnstiles at Broadway Lafayette. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

Fisher recruited a \u201cparkour guy, a rock climber and a pole dancer\u201d to challenge the Metropolitan Transportation Authority\u2019s choice of where it puts its cash <\/a>as part of his upcoming show, The Danny Fisher Show, a program he said will both poke fun at Big Apple life and celebrate the city.<\/p>\n

For privacy reasons, and uneasiness about the criminality of the contest, none of the contestants gave their real names, which Peter Parkour, a 10-year-long traceur, someone who takes part in the free running activity, called \u201cvery silly.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parkour, of New Jersey, spiced up his act by vaulting onto the tap-to-pay pads and adding in some twists, while Tato, a recreational pole dancer, donned heels as she shimmied up the glass.<\/p>\n

The event was to poke fun at the new but \u201cineffective\u201d paneled turnstiles. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

The group climbed over the turnstiles twice without MTA intervention. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

But it was \u201cJosh\u201d who won the crowd over with his rock climbing skills.<\/p>\n

After chalking his hands, the Brooklynite grabbed hold of the brand-new overhead rider-counting scanners as if they were a Down Pull grip at the rock climbing gym before descending on the other side of the panel.<\/p>\n

The judges awarded Josh a $3 check \u2014 the price of a subway fare, joking that the MTA raised the fee just for the competition.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m always out there searching for new challenges and the MTA really upped the ante with this one. This just shows that anything can be overcome!\u201d he said after winning the gold.<\/p>\n

Josh was crowned the winner after putting his rock climbing skills to the test. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

On the turnstiles themselves, Josh said: \u201cIt\u2019s a lot of money that could be used elsewhere and if they want to get people to stop hopping the turnstiles, they could use that same money and make the service better.\u201d <\/p>\n

Several MTA workers stationed inside to help straphangers maneuver through the new fare gates watched on unfazed as the trio hopped the glass and a crowd of roughly a dozen cheered on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

They still didn\u2019t intervene when the group returned for a second run-through \u2014 though one worker whipped out his phone to film the unusual event.<\/p>\n

The event was put on by Danny Fisher as part of his soon-to-be-launched show. Christopher Sadowski<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was more than I could have ever envisioned. I was not expecting this level of competition from the athletes and we\u2019re looking forward to the 2027 Fare Evasion Olympics,\u201d Fisher said at the ceremony\u2019s close.<\/p>\n

\u201cHopefully, people will see this and feel something about the MTA and understand something about the new turnstiles.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Danny Fisher Show\u201d will kick off with a live show at the end of February and plans to air the Olympics in March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"These fare hoppers going for the long jump! A ragtag group of quirky jocks leaped over the MTA\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95528,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[68,57,141,9,197,56,63,65,64,25637,1687,58],"class_list":["post-95527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-exclusive","tag-metro","tag-mta","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city-life","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-headlines","tag-nyc-news","tag-subway-fare","tag-subways","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95527\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95528"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}