Janja Garnbret Flashes Every Problem to Win Boulder World Championship
France's Oriane Bertone earned silver and American Brooke Raboutou took bronze at the event in Bern, Switzerland
Photo by: Lena Drapella/IFSC
Janja Garnbret continues her incredible dominance in the world of competition climbing. At Saturday’s women’s Boulder World Championships in Bern, Switzerland, Garnbret flashed every finals problem with apparent ease to win gold. It’s her third Boulder World Championship gold – a female record – and her seventh World Championship gold across all disciplines, a record across both gender categories.
Garnbret wasn’t just dominant in the final round. She also flashed all four problems in the semis and topped all five problems in the qualifiers, three of which were flashes. Across all three rounds – qualifiers, semis, and finals – she only took 17 attempts to complete 13 boulders.
“It’s hard to put into words right now what I feel,” said Garnbret after her victory. “To be honest I never get used to winning. I will probably never get used to stepping onto the podium and celebrating first place because it’s just so incredibly hard to keep the level up because the girls are so strong and coming after me, and it’s hard to keep up with them. Every win means the world to me, it’s always like the first one.
“The boulders were tricky, so it was easy to fall, but today I was ‘the right Janja’, as I like to call it, where I was in my own world and my own bubble. I didn’t hear or see anything because I was just in the present moment and just enjoying myself on the wall, so I didn’t doubt that I would fall once because I was just climbing and enjoying.
“The best moments were probably the slabs. Everyone knows I haven’t been the greatest on slabs this year because of the injury and everything going on. It was pretty tough for me training that, so every time I topped a slab I was incredibly happy.”
Garnbret was joined on the podium by Oriane Bertone, who placed second, and Brooke Raboutou, who placed third. Bertone had a very solid performance, topping the first three problems of the evening and reaching the final hold on the fourth problem. Raboutou pulled off impressive flashes of problems #1 and #4 – both of which required a lot of strength and power – but wasn’t able to manage a top on problems #2 or #3. Problem #2 featured a reachy move that gave both Raboutou and Japan’s Ai Mori trouble.
Natalia Grossman had a tough night, flashing the first problem of the evening but only scoring zone on the next three. She ended up in fifth, one spot behind France’s Zélia Avezou and one spot ahead of Mori. All competitors other than Grossman will compete in Sunday’s Lead World Championship semi-final. Both the men’s and women’s Lead semi-finals and finals take place on Sunday August 6.
Final Results
- Janja Garnbret (4T4z 4 4) [SLO]
- Oriane Bertone (3T4z 7 4) [FRA]
- Brooke Raboutou (2T4z 2 11) [USA]
- Zélia Avezou (2T4z 8 10) [FRA]
- Natalia Grossman (1T4z 1 9) [USA]
- Ai Mori (1T2z 1 6) [JPN]
2023 World Championship Women’s Boulder Final
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