Anak Verhoeven
Anak Verhoeven (born 15 July 1996) is a Belgian sport climber. Since 2013, she has repeatedly won the Belgian National Championship in lead climbing. In 2016, she ranked first on the IFSC World Ranking List. In 2017, she won both the World Games and IFSC Climbing European Championships. Verhoeven is also one of the strongest female sport climbers, and in 2017, became the first-ever woman in history to establish a new route, "Sweet Neuf". Early life. Verhoeven started to climb when she was 4 years old, and both her parents were already climbers. Climbing career. Competition climbing . In 2012, at age 16, she started participating in the Lead Climbing World Cup, and by 2014, had become the Junior European Champion at the Championships in Edinburgh. In 2015, she won the World Youth Championship in Italy, where she competed for the last time as a junior. In the same year, she also participated in the Lead Climbing World Cup, where she ranked fourth. In 2016, she competed at the World Championships in Paris. During the finals, she managed to top the route but fellow competitor Janja Garnbret also topped and won gold due to countback. In the same  year, she also ranked second in the Lead Climbing World Cup. Verhoeven ended the 2016 competition season as number 1 on the IFSC World Ranking List. In 2017, she won both the World Games and IFSC Climbing European Championships. In late 2017, Verhoeven was forced to take time off from competition climbing with a serious elbow injury from which she did not fully recover until 2019. In June 2021, Verhoeven announced that she was retiring from competition climbing to focus on her outdoor rock climbing projects. Rock climbing. In September 2017, she did the first free ascent (FFA) of the  route "Sang neuf", at Pierrot Beach in France, becoming the first-ever woman in history to do an FFA at that grade. She then did the FFA of "Sweet Neuf" (links "Sang Neuf" with the 25-metere second pitch of "Home Sweet Home"), and proposed a rating, which in June 2019 was confirmed by on repeating "Sweet Neuf". Her ascent of "Sweef Neuf" made her the second-ever woman in history to climb a 9a+ route (Margo Hayes was first), and the first-ever woman in history to do the FFA of a 9a+ route. In December 2017, Verhoven did  the FFA of the 9a/9a+ route "Ciudad de Dios pa la Enmienda" in Spain, making her the first-ever female to do an FFA of a 9a, a 9a/+ or a 9a+ route (Angela Eiter did the first-ever female FFA of a 9b route). In November 2019, she climbed her second 9a+, "Joe Mama", in Spain. In June 2020, Verhoeven made the FFA of "Kraftio", a route that was bolted 15 earlier but had repelled all attempts to scale it; Verhoven graded it 8c+/9a making it Belgium's hardest-ever sport climbing route, which she named in memory of  the former Belgian climber Chloé Graftiaux. Personal life. Christian faith is an important part of Verhoeven's life, which she said she inherited from her parents. Rankings. Climbing World Championships. Youth Adult Climbing European Championships. Youth Adult