Katharina Saurwein

She won the Imst World Youth Championships in 2006. Two years later she won her first Bouldering World Cup and the Rockmaster Boulder in Arco. In recent years she has increasingly climbed outside and is particularly kenn on highball bouldering.

She says: “It all started on a Saturday in June 1995, at the University of Innsbruck’s sports science campus. I saw a climbing wall for the first time and since I have to try everything, I put on a harness and I started climbing. Once at the top, all I wanted to do was take another route. Then I was forever tied to climbing. Today I go out to discover new rocks. I try to improve myself as a climber and find new challenges.”

Moreover, for some time she has been a coach of the Austrian National Paraclimbing team and about this she says: “As an athlete I too had my more and less fortunate moments , a few small injuries. I was forced to fight to get back in shape, but I always had the opportunity to get back to where I started. My wounds healed, the pain disappeared and the body recovered, leaving only small memories. Paraclimbing athletes did not have this opportunity. They were forced not only to start from the beginning, but to totally change their approach to everything. We can all learn a lot from them, all of us. And in all these years of competitions, theirs is the best lesson I’ve ever learned.”