Kazbekova was born in 1996 in Dnipro.[2] Her grandparents were climbers; her grandmother won the championship of the Soviet Union in a competition in Crimea, the same place where her parents, Serik Kazbekov [es] and Natalia Perlova [uk], met and later owned a hotel. Perlova herself was a competition climber, the Ukrainian champion,[1] and the 2002 overall bouldering world cup winner.[3] Her father won a silver medal in speed climbing at the 1993 UIAA Climbing World Championships in Innsbruck, Austria.[4] Her parents regularly brought Kazbekova to competitions with them,[5] and Perlova recalls Kazbekova already scrambling on the rocks of Crimea at the age of seven months, on family climbing trips there.[6]
In early 2022, due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine escalating the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, Kazbekova, her parents, and younger sister Rafael Kazbekova (herself a competition climber) fled Kyiv for Germany. She has continued to be a prominent and staunch advocate for Ukrainian interests in the climbing world. In part in response to her efforts, in 2022, the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC) cancelled several events scheduled to be held in Russia, and suspended all Russian athletes from their competitions.[7] Kazbekova's family later moved to Manchester, England. As of 2024[update], Kazbekova is primarily based in Salt Lake City in the US, where the US climbing team trains.[1][8]
Climbing career
As of 2024[update], Kazbekova's highest-level international competition climbing result is fourth place in bouldering at the 2019 IFSC Climbing World Championships.[9] She has been the Ukrainian champion from 2012 to 2021.[2] Outdoors, she redpointed her first 7a+ (5.12a) graded sport climbing route at age eight, and her first 8a (5.13b) graded route at age 11.[6] She has solved the 8A+ (V12) graded bouldering problem called Partage in Fontainebleu in France, the 8c/8c+ sport climbing route Pati Naso in Siurana in Spain,[2] and the 8c+ (5.14c) graded sport route Güllich at the Redstone crag in Crimea (and as the first female free ascent) in 2017.[10]
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