Brooke Raboutou Claims Silver in Boulder & Lead, Becomes First U.S. Woman to Win Olympic Medal in Sport Climbing

LE BOURGET, France —  Brooke Raboutou of Team USA became the first American woman to win an Olympic medal in sport climbing on Saturday afternoon. She took silver in the women’s boulder and lead with 156.0 points. Slovenia’s Janja Garnbret took gold with 168.5 and Austria’s Jessica Pilz won bronze with 147.4.

With today’s silver, Raboutou continues to pave the way for sport climbing in the U.S. She became the first American climber to qualify for the Games at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020, when she took home fifth. She is now just the second American to win a medal, after Sam Watson took bronze in speed climbing earlier this week.

Climbing is a family affair for Raboutou. Both parents were successful professional rock climbers, and her brother is a pioneering climber in his own right, specializing in bouldering. The Colorado native has been competing since she was seven years old and has gotten to grow alongside the sport as it reaches bigger and bigger platforms.

“It’s really exciting to see climbing growing,” said Raboutou. “To get to share all of our passion and love for climbing … it’s something special. The movement, the climbing, the community. Everything is really special.”

The Olympic Games Paris 2024 have looked different for Raboutou, and her competitors, than their experience three years ago in Tokyo. Sport climbing became an Olympic sport then, and the event combined all three disciplines — speed, boulder, and lead — into one. This time, speed was held as a separate event while boulder and lead remained combined.

“We can’t be mad about where we started,” said Raboutou on the development of the sport on the Olympic level. “You have to start somewhere, so it makes sense that Tokyo was all three.

I’m really happy that they were able to separate speed and give the speeders a chance to show how good they are at what they do. It's cool to have those disciplines really grow because of that separation, and I hope we get to do that more.”

While boulder and lead are combined, athletes are typically stronger at one discipline than the other. For Raboutou, bouldering is where she tends to find more room to get ahead of her competition. The competition on Saturday was no different.

The third boulder proved the perfect opportunity for Raboutou to utilize her strengths to move up on the leaderboard. Many of the competitors before her struggled to make it either to or past the low zone in the allotted four minutes. By the time Raboutou approached the problem, Japan’s Ai Mori was the only climber to have completed the boulder through to the top, taking three attempts.

The American showed promise on her first attempt, making it past the low zone before just missing a hold to secure completion of the high zone. Using the knowledge from her first go, Raboutou fought through to the top of the third boulder in just two attempts. Her 24.9 points skyrocketed her to the top of the rankings with just two climbers left. Garnbret, the reigning Olympic champion, went on to match Raboutou’s points, bumping her to second with the final boulder remaining.

Those standings held through the conclusion of the boulder portion of competition, with Raboutou trailing Garnbret by just 0.4 points with a score of 84.0. The two had distanced themselves from the other climbers as Australia’s Oceania Mackenzie was more than 24 points behind in third.

“Honestly, I didn't look at any scores after the bouldering round,” sad Raboutou. “Obviously I knew I had done really well, and I was very happy with my climbing. But I felt pretty calm after. It’s easy to celebrate that and then lose focus. I wanted to take the lead climb as it was, no matter what happened before, good or bad. Just climb relaxed.”

In Tokyo, a slip in lead cost Raboutou a chance at the podium. But Saturday was a different story. She maneuvered her way up the wall with poise, getting to the top section of holds before ending her climb. Her 72.0 lead points helped boost her into first with just Garnbret and Pilz to go, securing a spot on the podium. After competition concluded, Garnbret earned gold for her second consecutive games while Pilz took bronze.

After missing the podium in Tokyo, it wasn’t a higher placing that made Raboutou most proud this time around, but rather the growth that allowed her to handle the pressures.

“I’ve spent a lot of time working on my mind,” said Raboutou. “No just for competition, but to be happy in life. I’m incredibly happy and I live an incredible life. I’m so grateful for everyone who has supported me on that journey, and that I get to share it with them. It feels good to be out here and feel that no matter what. Then to have the silver medal and just have things work out feels even better.”

Hanna Barton is writing for Team USA as a graduate student in the Sports Capital Journalism Program at Indiana University Indianapolis.