Paris delivered the moment the climbing world expected. Janja Garnbret of Slovenia defended her Olympic title in the debut of the boulder-and-lead combined format, confirming her place at the summit of the sport.
A single gold, a new discipline
The women's final on 10 August 2024 replaced the Tokyo format. Boulder and lead merged into one event, with no speed round attached. Garnbret had already proven herself across separate disciplines, and the union of power and endurance inside a single test suited her rare range.
The boulder solved, the lead secured
She read each boulder problem with the calm precision that has marked her career. She flowed through the sequences while others hesitated, and the points mounted early. Then she moved to the lead wall and climbed higher than any rival into the headwall, building an advantage that no one could close.
The gap she opened in the boulder round gave her room to manage the lead climb on her own terms. Her foot placements stayed deliberate, her rhythm steady. The combined score carried her name to the top of the board once more.
Ten world titles, one unbroken thread
This Paris victory followed her double gold at the 2025 World Championships in Seoul, where she lifted her world-title count to ten. A year later, she became the first woman to ascend Bibliographie, the 9b+ route at Céüse, cementing her outdoor credentials.
In 2019 she completed a perfect Bouldering World Cup season, topping 74 of 78 problems and winning every stop. The same year, she captured the combined world crown in Hachioji after taking individual gold in both boulder and lead, a triple no climber had achieved at a single championship.
The Paris podium did not rewrite her story. It extended a line already drawn through landmark after landmark, from the first Olympic climbing gold in Tokyo to the quiet defence of that title on a new stage.
