Janja Garnbret wins gold in Boulder and leads the Paris Olympics

J.Anja Garnbret defended his gold medal in sport climbing on Saturday, becoming two-time Olympic champion in the Boulder & Lead event.

Garnbret, 25, won gold for her home country of Slovenia, with her score besting now Team USA silver medalist Brooke Raboutou and the other finalists. The two are close friends, and after the competition ended, they ran to each other and hugged.

“We have an incredible friendship where we both want each other to do our best, and that’s what happened today,” Raboutou said, according to the washington Publish. “And it feels really good to share that with someone and represent the sport in a way that we know we’re doing right and for ourselves.”

In the bouldering semi-finals, Garnbreat dazzled just four tenths of a point away of a perfect score, earning 99.6 points out of 100.

During the fourth stone of the final, however, after initially dominating, Garnbret fell and began to caress one of her fingers, at which point Raboutou managed to overtake her slightly.

As the competition heated up, Garnbret managed to overtake Raboutou in the first division of the final despite the potential injury. His leading performance was enough to achieve the coveted podium with a combined score of 168.5 points.

“I was very scared because my finger got stuck between two holes and I couldn’t get it out,” Garnbret said, according to the Washington Publish. “But I was on so much adrenaline that… I didn’t even care. I said to myself, ‘I don’t care if I’m missing a hand or a finger.’ I would go there and climb the route.”

Nine years after competing in his first World Cup at the age of 16, Garnbret officially established himself in climbing history with eight world championship titlesand in 2019, Garnbret achieved an extraordinary feat, sweeping the Bouldering World Cup season winning all six events – the first to do so.

By adding his second Olympic gold medal, Garnbret only further proved his title as the “undisputed GOAT in his discipline,” according to the official Olympics blog.