Natalia Grossman is Training for the Olympics
A new video has been released featuring the American champion talking about training
Team USA’s Natalia Grossman is off to the Paris Olympics this summer. She qualified by winning the Boulder & Lead Combined final at the Pan American Games in Santiago, Chile, last year. She crushed the Boulder round, being the only woman to top three out of the four problems. On the fourth problem, she got heartbreakingly close to scoring a top, with her hand touching the final hold, but failing to latch.
With her Boulder round finish of 84.3 points, Grossman moved into the Lead round well ahead of her other competitors. Brooke Raboutou trailed in second with 69.4 points, with Alannah Yip close behind her in third with 64.7. Grossman had an excellent Lead performance, falling near the top of the route and earning 88.1 points. This mathematically secured her first-place finish, as even if Raboutou was to top the route, she wouldn’t gain enough points to best Grossman.
“My friend Oscar was holding his finger up, like, ‘First!’, and I almost didn’t believe it,” said Grossman, reliving the immediate moments after her Lead climb. “I wanted to wait until I saw it, just because people tend to say things before they happen. It was a very surreal moment!” With the conclusion of the Lead round, Grossman stood atop the podium with a gold medal and Olympic ticket in hand. “I feel just so grateful and proud of all the work I have put in,” said Grossman after her win. “I changed a lot in this past couple of months, in my climbing and in my life, and to see it pay off feels really good.”
Grossman is one of the best competitive climbers in the world. She had her breakout year on the World Cup scene in 2021, earning two Boulder World Cup gold medals, the overall Boulder World Cup season, and the Boulder World Championship. Watch a recently released video featuring Grossman at the gym below.
Olympic Bound
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