Sam Watson Is The Fastest Climber In The World, Breaking His World Record

LE BOURGET, France — Speed climbing is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sport. With most athletes finishing in around five seconds, it’s an event a sprinter and Spider-man would have concocted.

Coming into the Olympic Games Paris 2024, Team USA’s Sam Watson was holding the world record with a time of 4.79 — the second athlete to go under 5 seconds, after Indonesia’s Veddriq Leonardo clocked 4.984 in a world cup semifinal and then 4.900 in the final. That record held for a year until Watson broke it twice at a world cup in Wujiang, China in April, making 4.798 the new goal — until all that changed in Paris.  

Because it wouldn’t be an Olympics if records weren’t broken multiple times.

In the early heats, it was Indonesia’s Leonardo again who tied Watson’s world record, but it didn’t stand for long after the 18-year-old American returned with a run of 4.75 later the same day.

Coming into the finals on Thursday morning the first-time Olympian broke his own world record to go the fastest time of the day (4.74), shaving another one one-hundredths of a second off his world record time to become the fastest climber in the world. And he did it in the bronze medal match.

Stumbling in the first of the semifinal races near the top of the wall against China’s Peng Wu, Watson finished behind, sending him to the second final match to fight for the bronze.

“No regrets,” Watson said about the grip error that caused a slower time. “I don't think the pressure really got to me or anything like that. I think just a tiny little stumble at the top, just a few millimeters off a certain hold allowed me to get less power out of it and slow down a lot.”

After the last race had finished, Watson was still holding the fastest time. Wu claimed the silver with a time of 4.77 with Indonesia’s famed sprinter taking the gold and setting a new personal best of 4.75. This was the first time Indonesia had won an Olympic medal that wasn’t in badminton.

“Speed climbing is most likely the lowest margin of error of sport in the entire Olympic Games,” Watson explained. “But it makes this sport very exciting.”

The Paris Games was the second time climbing has been contested at an Olympics but this was the first year speed climbing was its own discipline. In Tokyo, bouldering, lead and speed were one event, with Team USA’s Nathaniel Coleman winning the silver in the men’s combined — the first climbing medal for the U.S.

Watson is now taking home the second — but he doesn’t expect it will be his last.

“I really want to get under 4.6 seconds,” Watson said.

“If you don’t know how the sport works, the reaction time off the ground must be at least point one. So, under 4.6 means that you do the route in under four and a half seconds. That really does mean a lot to me. That was the next goal after sub-five proved to be possible and now decently easy for all these athletes. So just keep going, no limits.”

Lisa Costantini has covered Olympic and Paralympic sports for more than a decade, including for the International Olympic Committee. She is a freelance writer who has contributed to TeamUSA.com since 2011.