Paris 2024 Olympics: Sport climbing phenom Janja Garnbret, influencer Natacha Oceane inspire one another

By Jo Gunston
5 min|
Janja Garnbret of Slovenia competes in the Women's Boulder & Lead - Semifinal Lead at Paris 2024
Picture by Luke Hales/Getty Images

"I'm seriously impressed," Janja Garnbret tells fitness influencer Natacha Oceane, who had just tried one of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion's strength exercises for the first time.

The Slovenian sport climbing phenom was not just paying lip service to the Londoner either, judging by the YouTube video I Trained with the Greatest Competition Climber Ever, which has had 620,000 views to date.

Oceane had headed to Garnbret's home base in Slovenj Gradec in January to try out the training regime of the Boulder & Lead specialist considered the most successful women's competitive climber of all time with eight world titles and a record-breaking 45 World Cup wins. No one else has won more.

Nine years after featuring in her first World Cup at age 16, Garnbret is at her second Olympic Games, at Paris 2024, with eyes set firmly on replicating her gold medal from Japan.

Biophysicist student Oceane, meanwhile, is renowned for translating the technical side behind her workouts in a “Science Explained” series to her one million followers on Instagram and 1.68 million YouTube subscribers.

Her fitness plans and understanding of nutrition and diet have also been approved by Team GB performance specialist Renee McGregor, who has worked with athletes at London 2012 and the Rio 2016 Paralympic team.

Oceane is super fit — she ran a 100-mile ultramarathon in November — but sport climbing is a whole different type of fitness, while Garnbret is a law unto herself, even in her specialist field.

So what was it that so impressed Garnbret?

Garnbret and Oceane sport climbing training

It was a lateral training drill that prompted praise from the Olympic champion.

Oceane joined Garnbret at the Rehabo Center where off-wall training is the focus. The first exercise involved standing perpendicular to the wall with a tight band around both knees. Arms raised and holding onto a bar attached to a cable that pulls unpredictably at different strengths, with no pattern as to what it will do next, was all new to Oceane.

Attempting the exercise at 70 per cent of the resistance of Garnbret's setting to start, Oceane managed well. "It's unpredictable, so you have to be ready for anything," was her summary.

It was trying the same exercise at 100 per cent that prompted the "seriously impressed" comment from Garnbret.

Lateral exercises are up there with Oceane's favourite types of drills. "If I could run my 100 miles laterally, I would, that's how much I love it," admits the woman who was presumably a crab in a previous life.

The Brit came unstuck on a balance test, however. Balancing on a wobbly board, the idea is to move feet incrementally, which in turn directs an icon on a screen to hit targets, like in a computer game.

Oceane scored zero.

"I do stuff on the BOSU ball, but that's completely different," she said.

"I also got a zero when I first came here, so don't worry," said a smiling Garnbret, who revealed she needs to mix things up to keep climbing playful for optimum performance.

"These exercises are fun because you work on your weaknesses during the game. You don't even know that you're training because you're so focused on the game," she said.

“I’m the kind of person who, if I’m not having fun, then I definitely won’t get a good result... I know if I enjoy it, everything will be okay,” Garnbret told TIME magazine in 2021. The publication featured Garnbret in their second annual TIME100 Next list, which showcases emerging leaders from around the world who are shaping the future. Yep, Garnbret is that good she is on the list.

Changed format for sport climbing at Paris 2024

Garnbret doesn't do regular gym workouts such as deadlifts, lunges or squats, she told Oceane.

"It might sound surprising, but I'm not really doing any traditional fitness, because you don't really want any muscle weight," Garnbret said.

"We want to have strong and lean muscles, so I'm not doing any deadlifts.

"I did that before the Tokyo Olympics when I needed to train speed, but just because of the Olympics," she said, referencing the fact that at sport climbing's inaugural Games in Japan the disciplines of Boulder and Lead, plus Speed, were combined to give one overall winner.

In Paris, Boulder and Lead is a combined event, with Speed a separate competition.

"In Tokyo, it was a combination of all three disciplines, so it was like a must do if you wanted to win."

And win Garnbret did.

But now, with the more endurance-led boulder and lead, Garnbret is focusing mostly on "core work and mobility and whole connections in the body".

This is something close to Oceane's heart.

"My biggest inspirations in sport have always been the ones who remind you that the potential of your body is probably even greater than you realise," she said.

And for many, including Oceane, the uber successful Garnbret is one of the biggest inspirations of them all.

Janja Garnbret finals schedule at Paris 2024

Saturday 10 August

10:15 Women's Boulder & Lead, Final Boulder

12:35 Women's Boulder & Lead, Final Lead