‘THE RIGHT JANJA’ TAKES ANOTHER BOULDER WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS TITLE

Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret took her third Boulder World Championships title at Bern 2023 with a complete show of dominance to set the female record for golds in the discipline.

When you look up the word ‘perfect’ in the dictionary, there is now just a picture of the Slovenian world champion. On the fifth day of the World Championships Garnbret flashed every single boulder put in front of her.

Four in semi-finals - all flashed. Four in the final – all flashed. It’s no surprise that Garnbret now extends her record of World Championships gold medals in all disciplines, from both genders, with her seventh.

Talking of her victory Garnbret said: “It’s hard to put into words right now what I feel. To be honest I never get used to winning. I will probably never get used to stepping onto the podium and celebrating the 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.”

Explaining how she flashed every boulder Garnbret said: “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.”

In a personal best performance, Oriane Bertone took inspiration from her medal winning teammates Mickael Mawem and Mejdi Schalck to get the crowd roaring her every move, and onto the World Championships podium in silver.

Topping three boulders and making the zone in all four, Bertone was pumping the crowd up, soaking in the moment and seemed to be elevated to the top of a tricky third boulder – a problem only Garnbret could also complete.

For USA’s Brooke Raboutou, a bronze medal was sealed in incredibly fashion. The penultimate climber out on the mat, all before her couldn’t make it past the zone on boulder four, but the American knew a top in few attempts would guarantee a medal. She flashed it.

The smiling Raboutou embraced her competitors and joined Garnbret and Bertone on the podium as fourth placed Zelia Avezou of France, fifth placed Natalia Grossman of USA and sixth placed Mori Ai of Japan looked on.

You can find the full women’s Boulder results here