Liv Sansoz

Liv Sansoz
nation	France
birthday	12th February 1977 (age 43)
place of birth	Bourg-Saint-Maurice , France
size	162 cm
Weight	45 kg
job	Climbing instructor
Career
discipline	Lead , bouldering
National squad	Since 1993
status	resigned
End of career	2001
Medal table
World championships 2 × 0 × 1 × European championships 1 × 0 × 1 × Junior World Championship 1 × 0 × 0 ×
World climbing championships bronze 1995 Geneva Lead gold 1997 Paris Lead gold 1999 Birmingham Lead European climbing championships gold 1996 Paris Lead bronze 1998 Nuremberg Lead Junior climbing world championships gold 1995 Laval Lead
Placements in the climbing world cup
Debut in the World Cup May 28, 1993  World Cup victories 16  Lead World Cup 1. (1996, 1998, 2000)  Boulder World Cup 1st (1998)  Combination World Cup 1. (2000)
Podium placements 1. 2. 3.  Lead 11 7th 5  Bouldering 5 1 1

Liv Sansoz (born February 12, 1977 in Bourg-Saint-Maurice , Savoie ) is a French mountaineer , sport climber and former base jumper . She is a two-time world champion in difficulty climbing and won the overall world cup four times in the lead and bouldering disciplines . In 2017/18 she was the first woman to climb all 82 four-thousand-meter peaks in the Alps in a record time of one and a half years .

Life

Childhood and youth

Liv Sansoz grew up in the French Alps and came into contact with alpine sports at an early age. She started skiing at the age of two and also tried monoskiing and snowboarding during her childhood . However, documentaries like “Apocalypse Snow” brought her back to deep snow skiing and thus back to classic skiing. During her high school days, she even used free hours for sport in the Les Arcs ski area . Her father started paragliding in the late 1980s and took his daughter with him a few times. However, after a dangerous incident, her mother forbade her to continue.

At the age of 14, Liv finally discovered her love for sport climbing in the calanques of the southern French Mediterranean coast . In the same year, she climbed Mont Blanc for the first time with her father . After reading alpine literature for many years, she names alpinists such as Jean-Marc Boivin , Walter Bonatti , René Desmaison , Louis Lachenal , Gaston Rébuffat or Doug Scott as her inspiration.

Competitive climbing

After she had previously succeeded in national championships, Sansoz made her debut in May 1993 in the climbing world cup . On December 10th of the same year, she achieved a podium finish for the first time with second place in Laval . She achieved her international breakthrough in the 1995 season, when she won the bronze medal at the World Climbing Championships in Geneva and five months later was crowned junior world champion in Laval. She finished third in the World Cup. The next season was even more successful, in which she not only celebrated her first two World Cup wins, but also won the overall ranking in difficult climbing (lead) for the first time . In February 1997 she won her first world championship title in Paris , in the upcoming World Cup she had to admit defeat to her main competitor Muriel Sarkany .

In the summer of 1998, Sansoz won the first three Boulder World Cups and was able to win the first time with another victory. In September, after several second places, she won the prestigious Rockmaster in Arco . In autumn, she also won the lead ranking and is still the only athlete to win World Cup rankings in two different disciplines within one year. The Czech Adam Ondra succeeded in this later in different years. In 1999 she defended her world title in Birmingham and won the overall World Cup for the third time a year later.

In 2001, she fell while rock climbing the Virgin River and sustained a vertebral injury with nerve damage . As a result, she stopped competing and found no motivation to climb for several years. Instead, she trained as a climbing instructor and graduated in December 2006 with a degree in psychology .

Extreme sports

Sansoz's passion for rock climbing already took her to numerous countries during her active competitive career. At the age of 17, she climbed her first route with Patrick Edlinger and Marilé Walch in Cimai with a difficulty level of 8b. In 2000, she was only the second woman after the Baskin Josune Bereziartu to pass a grade 8c + (American 5.14c). She mastered a route on Mount Charleston with François Legrand and two Americans . She also practiced ice climbing and bouldering around the world, for which she traveled to Bishop , Hampi and Fontainebleau , among others . At the Hueco Tanks in Texas , she achieved grade 8a (V11) for the first time.

“Most people know me as I was when photographed as a young adult winning almost all the competitions. A competition climber, a plastic climber. But my heart has always been in the mountains, where I grew up. "

“Most people know me from the photos as a young adult, when I won almost all of the competitions. As a competition climber, plastic climber. But with my heart I was always in the mountains where I grew up. "

- Liv Sansoz

As a result of her back injury, Sansoz refrained from climbing rocks for several years. In 2002 she rediscovered paragliding and began skydiving at the same time . After she started climbing again in 2007, she moved to Chamonix and came to base jumping through her partner at the time, with whom she climbed El Capitan in 2008 . After numerous parachute training she jumped for the first time of a railway bridge in Idaho , their first big wall Jumps led in Norway by. Among other things, she also jumped from the so-called mushroom, a ledge in the north face of the Eiger . In December 2009, her parachute collapsed on a nightly base jump, causing her to fall and suffer a sacrum fracture that left her almost immobile for three months. In the years to come, she repeatedly struggled with injuries, including several broken bones . In 2014 she finally withdrew from base jumping after she was no longer willing to continue taking the high risk.

Sansoz had to climb the Aletschhorn twice in 2017

For 2017, Sansoz - inspired by the Swiss Ueli Steck - decided to climb all 82 four-thousand-meter peaks in the Alps within one year. She started her undertaking on March 2nd with the Gran Paradiso and after two months with various companions had already climbed 37 peaks. On the descent from the Aletschhorn , she sustained a knee injury and had to be rescued by helicopter . While waiting, she also suffered frostbite on both big toes and was forced to take a seven-week break. Since she made it a point to completely cope with the ascent and descent on skis , on foot or with a paraglider, she had to repeat the ascent of the Aletschhorn. The injury delayed her record attempt and after exactly one year she stood at 76 four-thousanders. She reached the last two peaks, Aiguille Blanche de Peuterey and Grand Pilier d'Angle , on September 11, 2018, which means that she missed her original goal by a wide margin, but set a new record for women. It took her a total of 80 day trips for the endeavor.

successes

Competitive climbing

• World title in difficulty climbing (lead) 1997 and 1999
• Overall World Cup lead in 1996, 1998 and 2000
• Overall World Cup in bouldering 1998 ( Top Rock Challenge )
• European title in lead 1996
• Rockmaster victory in 1998
• 3 French championship titles (lead 1994 and 1999, bouldering 1998)

World Cup victories

Lead date place country September 19, 1996 Ekaterinburg Russia December 15, 1996 Graz Austria November 9, 1997 Kranj Slovenia November 22, 1997 Imst Austria 4th September 1998 Courmayeur Italy November 14, 1998 Kranj Slovenia May 28, 1999 Leipzig Germany November 12, 1999 Kranj Slovenia September 23, 2000 Lecco Italy November 2, 2000 Nantes France November 17, 2000 Kranj Slovenia

Bouldering date place country July 12, 1998 Val d'Isère France July 17, 1998 Chamonix France August 7, 1998 Valloire France August 28, 1998 Grenoble France

Rock climbing

• Sortilège (8b), Cimai, 1994 (with Patrick Edlinger and Marilé Walch)
• Hasta la Vista (8c / 8c +), Mount Charleston , 2000 (with François Legrand , Shelley Dunbar and Andrew Dunbar)
• Chablanke ( Boulder 8a / V11), Hueco Tanks, 2004 (with Arnaud Petit, Stéphanie Bodet and François Petit)
• The Nose (5.11), El Capitan , 2008
• Magic Mushroom (7c +), Eiger north face - followed by a base jump

Others

• Ascent of all 82 four-thousand-meter peaks in the Alps in 80 days (March 2, 2017 - September 11, 2018)

Filmography

• 2008: Nike ACG Sweetspot - Hampi
• 2008: Winter Nissan Outdoor Games
• 2008: Summer Nissan Outdoor Games
• 2009: BATS
• 2010: Summer Nissan Outdoor Games
• 2018: LIV Along the Way

Web links

Commons : Liv Sansoz  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website (English)
• Competition results of Liv Sansoz in IFSC (English)
• Short film - LIV Along the Way (YouTube) (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Beth interviews Liv Sansoz. Melotius, accessed October 10, 2018 . 
2. ↑ skiing. Liv Sansoz, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Paragliding. Liv Sansoz, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b c d e f} Climbing. Liv Sansoz, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
5. ↑ ^{a b} World Competitions - World Cups. IFSC , accessed October 8, 2018 . 
6. ^ ^{A b c} Liv Along The Way. Salomon TV / YouTube , May 7, 2018, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
7. ^ "Les études, le lien avec la vie" In: Vies d'athlètes - Le guide des athlètes de haut niveau , Comité National Olympique et Sportif Français (Ed.), Paris 2007, p. 15. Online PDF , accessed on October 8, 2018 (French).
8. ↑ ^{a b c} BASE jumping. Liv Sansoz, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
9. ↑ Jocelyn Chavy: Défi réussi - Liv Sansoz boucle les 82 sommets de plus de 4000 meters. Alpine Mag, September 13, 2018, accessed October 8, 2018 (French). 
10. ↑ Results 2006–1988 - Championnats de France. FFME , accessed October 11, 2018 (French). 
11. ↑ Liv Sansoz. Petzl , accessed October 7, 2018 .