Olympic sport climber Natalia Grossman talks the challenges of bouldering, what keeps her hooked on the sport, and bringing more people into the gym.
one of the most decorated climbers. She’ll seemingly hang from a fingernail as she launches her wiry body, Spider-Man style, across a boulder wall. Or she’ll smile from ear to ear as she strategizes around a problem as a set of moves is called in the sport. After she works her way up from the ground, through a designated zone, and to the top of the wall, she’ll look back at the spectators below with contagious and unrestrained joy.
The Cut recently caught up with Grossman to learn how a climber prepares for the Olympics, what keeps her hooked on the sport, and what the future may hold after the Paris Games. Bouldering, and sport climbing in general, is still fairly new to the Olympics. What should people unfamiliar with it understand?
I’m very into psychology. I think having people who you can talk to: friends, family, coaches, physios — a support team — is important. I have such a strong relationship with my parents. But something that I’ve really focused on the past two years is being in tune with myself and feeling and dealing with emotions and thoughts rather than just avoiding them. Because, yeah, the stakes can be very high, but pretending that they’re not isn’t healthy.
Skin is also something that gets spoken about a lot in our sport. You don’t want your skin too dry, or else you’ll get cracks or splits, which is very painful. I file down my calluses so I don’t get a flapper, where it just tears off. You also don’t want it too wet . There are all kinds of products to combat these problems: drying agents, moisturizing agents.Gymnastics, which I did as a kid, was very repetitive, trying to perfect something over and over again.
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