Olympic Games Paris 2024

IFSC Boulder World Cup 2024: Janja Garnbret easily wins season opener in Keqiao

By ZK Goh
2 min|
Janja Garnbret IFSC WC Keqiao 2024

Picture by © Nakajima Kazushige/IFSC

Janja Garnbret, the reigning Olympic sport climbing champion and one of the greatest climbers of all time, got her 2024 Olympic season off to the perfect start with a dominant win on Tuesday (9 April).

The Slovenian, who only competed on the boulder World Cup circuit twice last season but still finished on the podium both times, scored four tops and four zones in the season-opening IFSC Boulder World Cup event in Shaoxing Keqiao, People's Republic of China.

Garnbret was the only one of the six finalists to successfully complete all four boulders at the state-of-the-art Shaoxing Keqiao Yangshan Climbing Centre, which also played host to last year's Asian Games climbing competitions. It earned Garnbret her 41st career Climbing World Cup win across bouldering and lead events.

The 25-year-old, who is also reigning bouldering world champion, entered the final as the clear favourite, having topped the rankings after qualification (5T5z 5 5) as well as Tuesday morning's semi-finals (3T4z 7 8).

In the final, she started well, reaching top on both of her opening two boulders on her first try. She needed two attempts to do so on her third boulder.

Her victory was confirmed even before she had to attempt the last boulder: Italy's Camilla Moroni, who could have overtaken her, was unable to complete the last boulder, finishing on two tops and three zones (2T3z 10 13).

Garnbret then stepped up to complete the last boulder on her first go, finishing with a near-perfect record of 4T4z 5 5.

The hosts' Luo Zhilu took bronze with a score of 2T2z 2 2.

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