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 female Olympic gold medalist in climbing, and defended her title in 2024. With two gold medals, she is the most successful Slovenian athlete at the Summer Olympics. She is also the first 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 June 2026, Garnbret has won the most IFSC gold medals of any competitive climber in history. In the lead discipline of the World Climbing Series, she has missed the podium only on four occasions, winning 32 times. In addition, she has also won 18 events in bouldering for a total of 50 victories in the World Climbing Series.

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. Her win in the combined event qualified her for a spot at the 2020 Summer Olympics. Towards the end of 2019, she hired Roman Krajnik as her personal coach.

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 female Olympic champion in sport climbing, taking gold in the inaugural 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 in which she competed – lead, bouldering and combined.

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 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 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 climbed two graded sport routes, Seleccio Natural and La Fabela pa la Enmienda over a couple of days in Santa Linya, Spain, her first of the grade.

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

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 .

In June 2026, she became the first woman to climb the Bibliographie in Céüse, making her the second woman, and thirteenth person to climb the grade of 9b+ (5.15c).

Rankings

World Climbing Series The competition was known as the IFSC Climbing World Cup before 2026.

Senior