Janja Garnbret

Janja Garnbret (born 12 March 1999) is a Slovenian professional rock climber who specializes in sport climbing and competition climbing. She has won multiple competition lead climbing and competition bouldering events, two Olympic gold medals, and is widely regarded as the greatest competition climber of all time. In 2021, Garnbret became the first-ever female Olympic gold medalist in climbing, and successfully defended her title in 2024. With two gold medals, she is the most successful Slovenian athlete at the Summer Olympics. She is also the world's first-ever female climber to onsight an graded sport climbing route.

Garnbret won her first international title at the 2014 World Youth B Championships in lead. In July 2015, after turning 16, she entered the senior category of the IFSC Climbing World Cup in lead climbing. In 2016, aged 17, Garnbret won the World Cup seasonal titles in lead and combined, World Championships in lead climbing, and World Youth A Championships in both lead climbing and bouldering. From 2016 to 2018, she was awarded the seasonal title in both lead climbing and combined disciplines. In both 2018 and 2019, she won the World Championships in bouldering and combined and also reclaimed the lead title in 2019. The same year, Garnbret became the first athlete to win all bouldering World Cup events in a season.

As of September 2024, Garnbret has won the most IFSC gold medals of any competitive climber in history. In the lead climbing World Cup, she missed the podium only four times, winning 29 matches. In addition, she has won 17 bouldering World Cup events for a total of 46 victories at the World Cup level.

Early life

Garnbret started climbing at the age of seven and first competed in the national competition at the age of eight. She won her first major competition at the 2013 European Youth Championships, where she won in bouldering.

Climbing career

Competition climbing

In 2015, her first year of eligibility for the IFSC Climbing World Cup, she placed seventh in the overall lead climbing standings. The same year, she also placed first in a Swedish bouldering event, the "La Sportiva Legends Only", ahead of Shauna Coxsey, Mélissa Le Nevé, Juliane Wurm, and Anna Stöhr. She also won the bouldering gathering Melloblocco in 2015.

In 2016, she won most of the IFSC competitions in which she participated. She won the World Cup in lead and combined disciplines, the World Championships in lead, and the World Youth Championships in lead and bouldering. Garnbret also won the Adidas Rockstars 2016 contest (an invitational contest for the world's best bouldering athletes), defeating Jessica Pilz in the superfinal. She also won Rock Master in 2016, and then again in 2018.

In 2017, she won the World Cup in lead and combined disciplines, the combined title in the European Championships, and ranked second in bouldering in the World Cup and the European Championships.

In 2018, she defended her World Cup titles in lead and combined disciplines and placed fourth in bouldering by winning two golds and one silver, after participating in just 3 out of 7 events (due to school commitments). Moreover, she won the World Championships in both bouldering and combined. She was close to also winning the Lead Climbing World Championships, where she earned the silver medal by topping the final route in 4 minutes and 38 seconds, just 11 seconds slower than Jessica Pilz, who won the Championship.

In 2019, she dominated the bouldering World Cup by solving 74 problems out of 78 and winning every event throughout the season. Throughout six events, she placed first in six qualifications, four semifinals and six finals. This feat had never been achieved before in the history of competition climbing. The same year, Garnbret won three out of four disciplines at the 2019 IFSC Climbing World Championships, taking gold in lead, bouldering, and combined. Her win in the combined event qualified her for a spot at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

In 2021, she began the 2021 IFSC Climbing World Cup season with a win in bouldering at Meiringen in April before finishing second in Salt Lake City, ending her streak of bouldering World Cup wins at nine. In the same year, she became the first ever female Olympic champion in sport climbing, taking gold in the women's combined event at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

In April 2022, after her first bouldering World Cup victory in the 2022 IFSC Climbing World Cup season at Meiringen, Garnbret announced that she would skip the remaining bouldering events to focus on the European Championships and the lead events of the World Cup. At the 2022 European Championships in Munich, Garnbret won gold in all three events – lead, bouldering, and combined – with the first two being the only titles she had never won before, thus completing the feat of winning every possible major title in sport climbing.

In August 2023, Garnbret qualified for the combined event at the 2024 Olympics by winning the combined title in the 2023 World Championship. She also won the gold medal in the individual boulder event and the silver medal in the individual lead event, bringing her World Championship medal tally to ten, including eight gold.

In August 2024, she successfully defended her Olympic gold after winning the boulder and lead combined event at the 2024 Olympics for her second Olympic victory.

Outdoor rock climbing

In 2015, Garnbret onsighted ''Avatar'', an graded sport climbing route in Pandora, Croatia. The same year, she successfully climbed her first graded route by redpointing ''Miza za šest'' at Kotečnik in her home country of Slovenia.

In 2016, she flashed ''La Fabelita'' in Santa Linya, an graded sport climbing route. She was given route beta by her countrywoman Mina Markovič, and climbed the route in less than 15 minutes.

In 2017, she went a step further and clipped the anchor of her first graded sport route, ''Seleccio Natural'', in Santa Linya, Spain. Just a few days later, she climbed her second 9a graded route, ''La Fabela pa la Enmienda'', also in Santa Linya.

In November 2021, she onsighted ''Fish Eye'' in Oliana, Spain, which was the world's first-ever female onsight of a consensus graded sport route in history.

In March 2022, Garnbret made the first female ascent of ''Bügeleisen'', an graded bouldering problem in Maltatal, Austria. On 12 May 2024, she returned to Maltatal and made the first female ascent of ''Bügeleisen SDS'', a sit start variation that is graded at .

Rankings

Climbing World Cup

Climbing World Championships

;Youth

;Senior

Climbing European Championships

;Youth

;Senior

World Cup podiums

As of 7 September 2024, Garnbret has won 46 World Cup events and has a total of 66 podium finishes.

Lead

Bouldering

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Garnbret, Janja
1999 births
Living people
Sportspeople from Slovenj Gradec
Slovenian female climbers
Slovenian rock climbers
World Games silver medalists
World Games medalists for Slovenia
World Games medalists in sport climbing
Sport climbers at the 2020 Summer Olympics
Sport climbers at the 2024 Summer Olympics
Olympic sport climbers for Slovenia
Olympic gold medalists for Slovenia
Olympic medalists in sport climbing
Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics
Medalists at the 2024 Summer Olympics
IFSC Climbing World Championships medalists
IFSC Climbing World Cup overall medalists
Boulder climbers
Slovenian competition climbers
Medalists at the 2017 World Games