Slovenia's climbing superstar Janja Garnbret has won Olympic gold in the women's boulder & lead at the Paris Olympic Games after winning the combined event in the sport's Olympic debut at Tokyo 2020.

After coming on top in both disciplines of the combined event in the semi-finals, the 25-year-old Slovenian scaled three out of four boulders in the bouldering final on 10 August.

She needed only 29 seconds to scale the first boulder. She did it on her first try, same as two other finalists.

The second challenge proved more difficult, but in her third attempt Garnbret regained composure and clearly relieved, reached the top in front of a huge crowd at the Le Bourget climbing venue.

Climbing the third boulder, the defending world champion was again successful on her first try.

The final boulder was the only one she could not scale but neither did anyone else, so she still finished first in the bouldering part of the finals to score 84.4 points out of the 100 available, only 0.4 points ahead of the second-placed Brooke Raboutou of the US.

It initially seemed that Garnbret, who left the competition area visibly shaken after a hard landing, injured the middle finger on her left hand during the final boulder attempts but Gorazd Hren, the head coach of Slovenia's sport climbing team, told RTV Slovenija he was told everything was okay.

Indeed, she seemed fine in the lead final, scoring 84.1 points for a total of 168.5 points. She placed third but the final result was enough for the first place overall as Raboutou finished fifth in the lead.

Garnbret placed first in the boulder and lead semifinals earlier in the week, scoring 195.7 points out of the 200 available, but the points gained there did not carry over to the finals.

Raboutou won silver in the end and the bronze medal went to Austria's Jessica Pilz.

"It is hard to describe what I feel. A weight is off my shoulders. What I went through today is not easy. I apologise for crying, I'm feeling very emotional," Garnbret told RTV Slovenija, shedding tears of joy and relief.

When she woke up in the morning, she knew it was going to be her day. Her middle finger got stuck during the bouldering final, which made her a bit anxious, but before the lead final she told herself to go climb and enjoy it. "And I did just that, I forgot all about it, I did the best climb of my life," she said.

This is Garnbret's second Olympic gold after winning the combined event at the Tokyo Games, which also included speed, now a separate event.

On top of that she has won eight world titles and four European champion titles to boot.

Garnbret's gold medal is Slovenia's third at this year's Olympics, after Andreja Leški won gold in the women's judo under 63kg category and Toni Vodišek took silver in the men's formula kite.

The latest gold medal is Slovenia's tenth at the Summer Olympic Games since the country's independence in 1991. The country has so far scooped 31 gold, silver or bronze medals.