On April 8th, just one day before her 24th birthday, the American climber Brooke Raboutou became the first woman in history to redpoint (to successfully climb a route from start to finish without falling, after practising it beforehand) a 5.15c (9b+) route, sending Excalibur in Drena, Italy. The powerful and relentlessly steep line has quickly gained a reputation as one of the hardest sport climbs in the world, and with her send, Raboutou joins an elite group of climbers who’ve conquered it while setting a new benchmark for women’s climbing.
Raboutou’s rise to this moment has been nothing short of remarkable. Many in the climbing world were first introduced to her as an 11-year-old prodigy featured in THNKR’s Prodigies series, where she stunned viewers with her maturity, discipline, and raw talent. In the video, she speaks with the same quiet confidence that would define her future career. Now, over a decade later, she’s fulfilled that early promise to “climb the hardest routes out there” in spectacular fashion.
Though best known in recent years for her Olympic success, placing fifth in Tokyo and winning silver in Paris in 2024, Raboutou’s transition to outdoor projecting culminated in Excalibur, a route that pushed her to her limits mentally and physically. She developed her own beta, adapted to her size and style, and leaned on support from her brother, Shawn Raboutou, to fine-tune her approach.
Her poetic open letter to the route, shared on Instagram, revealed the depth of her emotional connection to the climb: “You taught me to argue with doubt until it began to doubt itself.” This was not just a physical victory, but one of transformation and self-belief.
From a child prodigy featured on THNKR to the first woman to climb 5.15c, Brooke Raboutou has rewritten what’s possible, again.
