Nicolai Užnik

The first wall Nicolai Užnik ever pulled on was in the attic of an old ski lodge in his home village, deep in the Rosental valley of southern Carinthia. He was six. What caught Nicolai was less the heights or the difficulty than the satisfaction of moving better today than yesterday. “Even small steps forward felt significant,” he has said of that period, “and that never really changed.” Two decades later, the same instinct still runs his climbing.

Today, in elite bouldering, his name has come to stand for precision. Užnik is the
European Bouldering Champion of 2022, finished fifth at the 2023 World Championships in Bern, and fourth at the 2022 World Games in Birmingham. He has built his career on versatility: explosive power married to fluid, technical movement, applied with the patience of someone who treats climbing as a craft. Whether he is dissecting a complex problem in the choreographed minutes of a World Cup, or working slowly through the puzzle of a new line on granite, the same instinct shows up. He wants the most efficient way through. He is willing to take the time it requires.

The work has taken him far. He climbs through Ticino in the colder months, runs the
World Cup circuit through the year, and has made the long trip south to Rocklands. But the rock that shaped him sits an hour from where he grew up, in Maltatal, and that is still where the biggest moments tend to land. In March 2025 he made the first ascent of Mount Doom 9A there: the first 9A in Carinthia, in Austria, and in the entire DACH region. Jakob Schubert repeated the line later that year, confirming the grade. Nicolai has since added the first ascents of Bügelbrett 8C+ in Maltatal and Full Gem 8C+ in Chironico, alongside repeats of some of the hardest boulders repeats all over the world.

His view of all of this is unhurried. “Climbing is very much about the process,” he has said, “understanding what’s happening with the movements, being outdoors, investing time in something that demands complete concentration.” Finding a good balance between competitions and outdoor projects is what makes a climbing life sustainable, he adds, and while his active career is in full swing he is also thinking beyond it: about ways to give something back to the sport that shaped him. The balance is deliberate. So is his relationship with rock, with conditions, with material. A quiet attention runs through every part of how he climbs.