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PARIS: Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret battled to victory in bouldering and lead events at the Paris Olympics on Saturday, clinching back-to-back Olympic titles and cementing her reputation as the world’s greatest rock climber.
Her victory gave Slovenia its second gold medal in Paris and the 25-year-old also went down in history as the first person to win Olympic titles in both bouldering and lead.
Brooke Raboutou of the United States won silver and Jessica Pilz of Austria won bronze.
It was the second time rock climbing had appeared at the Olympics, but it was the first time the Games separated bouldering and leading events from speed events, as is customary for the sport.
In a very different atmosphere than the spectator-less Tokyo Olympics three years ago, Garnbret, already a legend in her field, strode confidently onto the stage to launch her first climb to loud cheers from a packed crowd at the Stade Bourget.
Her early performance lived up to expectations, climbing the first of four boulders in just half a minute, leaving her with only three and a half minutes to go, a relaxed smile on her face.
In bouldering, athletes earn points by completing four bouldering “puzzles” on a 4.5-meter-high wall, while in lead climbing, they aim to climb as far up a 15-meter-high wall as possible in a single attempt. The scores are added together to determine the ranking.
However, Garnbret had trouble on the final boulder due to a finger injury she sustained midway through the race, leaving her with an unusually small gap of just 0.4 points to second-placed Raboutou when she entered the lead.
This made the race for the top prize extremely tight, requiring Garnbret to fight hard to win points on the lead line.
Finally, she succeeded, bringing the rapturous audience to their feet and Garnbret falling to the ground in tears of joy.
Garnbret had a total score of 168.5, followed by Raboutou at 156.0 and Pilz at 147.4.
— Reuters
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