Janja Garnbret flashes Pure Dreaming (8c+/9a) at Arco, Italy
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Björn Pohl
Janja Garnbret has stepped up her game once again. Last week the 2025 Lead and Boulder World Champion managed to flash Pure Dreaming at Massone close to Arco, Italy. Bolted by Alfredo Webber and freed by Adam Ondra, there is some uncertainty about the difficulty of this hugely overhanging testpiece; originally graded 9a, it was subsequently downgraded to 8c+ after kneepads made their incursion into sport climbing. Garnbret for her part didn't use kneepads, and a hold reportedly broke recently, possibly making the route slightly harder again.
Should it be confirmed at 9a, then the 26-year-old would go down is climbing history as being the third person to flash 9a after Adam Ondra and Alex Megos, and the first woman to do so. The jury will be out on this one for quite a while but, regardless, Garnbret has shown once again that pushing past limits and expectations, and just getting awesome stuff done, is second nature to her.
Garnbret's flash came after winning the Rock Master KO Boulder comp a few days earlier and after receiving some beta by Michele Caminati. Speaking to planetmountain, the Italian climber explained "We were trying the route, maybe she had seen us on a couple of attempts, but she certainly wasn't watching us because she was warming up. Then she asked me for some beta about the boulder crux below, about the first difficult section, and I explained how we do it, but we're a bit taller and obviously she soon found herself having to improvise. She managed to get through the first crux, I really don't even know how, and then she didn't even use the first no-hands rest - she skipped it completely and just kept climbing. Then, at the last boulder, she tried one sequence, then another, and right at the hard moves she clipped a quickdraw that everyone skips on the redpoint before powering up to reach the anchor. More than a guided flash ascent, it looked like an on-sight; she fought hard and had to change beta during her ascent. Almost more like an on-sight than a flash. In any case, insane."
To put things into perspective: after flashing 8c in 2015 and 2016, in 2021 Garnbret onsighted Fish Eye in Oliana and, in doing so, became the first in the world to onsight 8c. She then backed this up a few days later with American Hustle at the same crag, and consolidated the grade with Popolni mrk a Mišja peč in Slovenia last February, and Osapska pošast and Working class hero and nearby Osp in May. 8c+ has been onsighted only once before by a woman, namely by Laura Rogora who made short work of Ultimate Sacrifice at the Gorges du Loup in France last July.
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4a - 9b
