It’s Natalia Grossman’s time to shine. Not just as a member of the 2024 Paris Olympic Games Rock Climbing team, but also as Team USA’s first-ever Latina climber, which is an achievement that’s been in the making since she was a child.
“I started climbing when I was 6 and I loved it right away,” Grossman tells Her Campus in an exclusive interview. “I started competing within a year and I’ve been competing ever since.”
Grossman pursued rock climbing throughout her years at the University of Colorado-Boulder, where she studied psychology while competing in World Cup Championships and accomplishing 19 podium finishes — including nine golds.
Being a student-athlete was no easy feat, but Grossman enjoyed balancing her sport with her studies. “The year I started having a lot of success on the adult [rock climbing] scene was actually the year I started college [in 2019],” she says.
After graduating in winter 2022, she spent the 2023 competition season solely focused on training. However, she soon found she missed having something else to focus on outside of her sport, so she took on a few extra psychology courses. Finding the right balance between rock climbing and her extracurricular interests was a bit ~rocky~ for a while (leading to “some pretty bad performances,” in Grossman’s view), but eventually, she got the hang of it and even picked up a few other hobbies along the way.
“I really liked the balance of having things outside of climbing,” she says. “Now, I’m at a place where I have other hobbies like reading and painting, so I don’t necessarily need school, but it’s nice to not just have climbing.”
Another way Grossman seeks balance amid a rigorous training schedule — especially as she counts down the days until she competes at the Olympics — is with self-care.
“For me, self-care can look like a couple of things,” she says. “One of the things is allowing myself to just chill and sit on the couch, read a book, watch Netflix, not have to be in the gym all the time, and knowing that rest is a very important role in my training and having other hobbies.”
She’s also big on self-care shower routines. Grossman — who’s currently partnering with OLAY to promote its new Cleansing Melts — believes that having a self-care routine is the key to a smooth recovery, especially after a long day of climbing. “I am a twice-a-day shower person,” she says. “I like having my OLAY products and just getting into a nice self-care routine, which I think is very important. I can take my shower, I can put on my vitamin C moisturizer in the morning and my retinol moisturizer in the evening, and it gives … a sense of home, even on the road.”
Taking care of herself has become a crucial part of Grossman’s success, and it’s evident in the advice she wishes she could share with her younger self: “I would just say to believe in yourself and listen to your body. Be confident and enjoy the moment.”