Muriel Sarkany

Muriel Sarkany, born on 5 August 1974, is a Belgian rock climber who specialised in competition lead climbing. She started climbing at seventeen, entered international lead competitions at eighteen and became Youth World Champion at Basel in 1992. She won World Championship silver medals in lead in 1997, 1999 and 2001 and the gold medal in 2003, was European Lead Champion in 1998, and won the Lead Climbing World Cup five times, in 1997, 1999, 2001, 2002 and 2003. She retired in 2010 and as of 2022 still held the record for the most Lead World Cup gold medals, male or female. Outdoors she became the fourth woman to climb a 9a route, PuntX at Gorges du Loup in 2013, and in 2016 the first woman over forty to climb 9a, on Era Vella at Margalef.