Dreams and motivation of Janja Garnbret and Mia Krampl...

Dreams and motivation of Janja Garnbret and Mia Krampl remain the same despite the cancellation of the Olympics.



The new coronavirus has turned the world upside down and wiped the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games from the summer sports calendar, which will take place no later than next summer. Sport climbers Janja Garnbret and Mia Krampl, who were already looking forward to the Olympic premiere of sport climbing, accept the decision with mixed feelings, but confirm that it is the only right decision at this moment, as health comes first. Nevertheless, their motivation remains high and they will not run out of challenges.







"Of course I'm sad and disappointed that there will be no Olympic Games this summer, as I was really looking forward to my first Olympic appearance. After everything that's happening in the world, this is the only right decision and I support the Olympic committee's decision. The cancellation of the Olympic Games is not unexpected, and on one hand I feel relief, since it wasn't clear for a long time what their fate would be, but now it is, so we can keep ourselves and everyone around us healthy and safe. Dreams and goals remain the same for next year too, when I will do everything to be well prepared. There will be no shortage of motivation and I will continue preparing for the Olympic Games as I would otherwise. The training plan will change a little bit, but that's the current situation we have to face," assesses the decision of the International Olympic Committee by the first lady of sport climbing Janja Garnbret, the main favorite for a medal at the Olympic premiere of sport climbing.







In the last season, the 21-year-old Carinthian woman who lives in Gorenjska once again moved historical milestones when she climbed three world champion titles in Japan - in bouldering, lead, and combined -, and before that she won all World Cup events in bouldering. At the beginning of March this year, she swept the competition again at the bouldering masters in Germany, but now time has stopped for her too. "Domn and I are very happy that we managed to set up a piece of the bouldering wall in our climbing center that is currently being built just in time, so we can at least train a bit and thus maintain our form and feel on the wall. But it's possible to maintain fitness in other ways too, not just on the wall, you just have to be creative," says Garnbret, the Slovenian sportswoman of the year, who trains at home together with her partner Domn Škofic, also a member of the Slovenian national team in sport climbing, as she is aware of how important it is to maintain health: "Now more than ever it's important that we stand together and get rid of the coronavirus so that we can return to climbing as soon as possible. Stay at home, because that's the only way to keep yourself and everyone around you safe and healthy - and don't forget to wash your hands!"







"I'm neither sad nor disappointed. I enjoy climbing and I'm glad I can climb, even without competitions. There are always new challenges. The Olympics are just one more big bonus for me. It means a lot to me to be part of something so big, but I don't care if it's in 2020 or whenever later," emphasizes Mia Krampl, who went to training camp in Tokyo just before the introduction of quarantine, where she will probably stay longer than planned due to the situation in Slovenia and around the world: "I'm currently in Tokyo, where life is proceeding normally and I can train almost uninterrupted. But there are many athletes around the world who can't do that right now. It would be unfair to organize such an important competition under such different training conditions. In addition, I still put the health of athletes and all citizens whose athletes are part of the Olympic Games first."







"My motivation remains the same as before. In my climbing, there are still many things that can be improved, and that's a challenge for me. Whether there will be any competition this year or not doesn't affect my motivation. It's important to have some goal and challenge, which doesn't have to be competitive," adds the 19-year-old Gorenjka, the current world runner-up in lead climbing, who started preparations for this season with bouldering training, focused on speed in February to catch up on her deficit in that discipline, now focusing again on boulders and shorter routes, later including lead training, depending on the course of the season, which is quite uncertain in the current circumstances.







The new competition season for sport climbers was supposed to start with the European Championship in Moscow at the end of March, but the International Federation of Sport Climbing postponed it by two months due to the pandemic of the new coronavirus, from June 15 to 22. They also postponed the Asian, Australian, and African championships, where sport climbers were supposed to qualify in combined for the last tickets to this year's Olympic Games. The start of the new World Cup season in bouldering was planned for the first April weekend in Swiss Meiringen, but the event - together with the one in Korean Seoul scheduled for early May - has been moved to September or October. The International Federation had already cancelled the April World Cup events in China some time ago, while the schedule for the first event at the end of May in Munich remains unchanged for now.







Although everything has stopped due to the new coronavirus pandemic, the Slovenian national team in sport climbing is preparing for the new season with adaptations. As selector Gorazd Hren said, all group activities are cancelled, but all team members are training individually or maintaining physical fitness at home. Including the candidates for the Olympic ticket for next year Jernej Kruder and Anže Peharc, who has prepared some exercises for home training.