Eighteen-year-old Sam Watson can scale a 50-foot-tall rock wall in 4.798 seconds. The time, which he achieved in July at the 2024 IFSC Climbing World Cup in Wujiang, China, makes him the fastest climber in the world.
But he wants to be faster.
Watson, who was born and raised in Southlake, begins competing at the Summer Olympics in Paris on Aug. 6 and is a favorite for the gold thanks to his impossibly quick climb times. He’s been climbing since he was 5 years old and was a student at Southlake Carroll High School until 2020, when he left to pursue full-time training and traveling for speed climbing.
“I really was focused on getting better and trying to be a professional. I went to the Youth World Championship and I did really well, and I just kept getting better. And everyone else has kept getting better, but I've gotten better faster,” Watson told the Observer over the phone from Europe. “You eventually get to the level where you’re just the best of the best.”
While Watson was recording shorter and shorter climb times at youth climbing competitions around the world, the sport was breaking onto the Olympic stage. In the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, held in 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, sport climbing debuted as a singular event combining speed climbing, bouldering and lead climbing. This summer will be the first time the Olympics sponsors speed climbing as a solo event, giving Watson a shot at the podium.
"[Being an elite athlete is] really not for everyone in the sense that it just really does take up 100% of your life to get to this level, and you have to make sacrifices.” — Sam Watson
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On top of aiming for the gold medal, he hopes to break his own record and go sub 4.7 seconds. He’s constantly pushing himself to improve, despite being at the top of the field.
“If I'm going to win a race, I want to win it on merit,” Watson said.
Like the hundreds of other athletes in the United States’ delegation, he took part in the Games’ rainy opening ceremonies clad in a Ralph Lauren blazer and jeans. The event was “one of the coolest things ever,” he said, made even cooler by the chance it offered him to meet some of his favorite athletes.
When not climbing, Watson is a massive basketball fan; he hopes to attend a game or two while in Paris.
“It was really cool to see the Eiffel Tower lit up, that was quite nice,” Watson said. “I waited for the bathroom on the [opening ceremony] boat with Steph Curry. … And then Anthony Edwards, one of my favorite basketball players, I got a picture with him.”
After the opening ceremony, the climbing team took off for Barcelona, where they spent nearly a week training and trying to shake any last-minute nerves or anxieties. It was “almost like regular [life],” Watson said, granting the climbers a chance to build confidence in the “preparation that has already been done.”
Watson arrived back in Paris on Aug. 1, five days before he begins his event.
Seeding and qualifiers will take place on Aug. 6. Then, on Aug. 8, the men’s speed quarterfinals, semifinals and finals will take place back-to-back-to-back during a 30-minute window in the afternoon, which is more than enough time when you realize the events themselves take less than 10 seconds from start to finish.
Mentally, he says he’s ready. Watson qualified for the Olympics at the 2023 Pan American Games last fall, giving him nearly a year to get prepped for the world stage. It was his second of three chances to qualify. A few months before, he’d had his “worst event of all time” at the World Championships, his first opportunity to earn his spot on Team USA.
He’s successfully avoided injuries and mental blocks, but that competition stood as his “biggest adversity” during his lead-up to the Olympics.
“Coming back and qualifying at the Pan American Games was probably one of the biggest things where I had to really, really work hard to get to my qualification seat,” Watson said. “[Being an elite athlete is] really not for everyone in the sense that it just really does take up 100% of your life to get to this level, and you have to make sacrifices.”
One of which was his decision to move away from home.
In April, Watson moved to Salt Lake City for college and to continue his training. Still, he hopes to contribute to the “great sports legacy” Texas is known for by adding to the Lone Star State’s medal tally. And it seems the move has paid off.
He’s won 11 of his last 12 races so far this season, he’s taken the gold at his last two world cups and he holds eight of the fastest 10 times ever recorded in speed climbing. So, yeah. Best of the best, indeed.
As one of the younger athletes in the sport, and on Team USA in general, it’s realistic to think Watson could continue dominating the speed climbing stage for summer Olympics to come. For now, though, he’s just focusing on the events ahead and on participating in the social media trends many other Olympians have turned to to keep themselves entertained while living in the Olympic Village.
One such trend is the trading of pins that are specifically designed for each country or sport. Some athletes, like Texas’s Simone Biles, even have their own pins, which are highly sought after. Another trend, which seems to have been started by a swimmer from Norway, Henrik Christiansen, pays respect to the chocolate muffins offered in the Olympic Village’s dining hall.
@henrikchristians1 I don’t think you guys realize how good this stuff is #fyp #zipline #olympics #paris2024 #olympictiktok #olympicvillage #muffins @Mr.Nicho ♬ original sound - I think you should leave shop
The muffins are as good as they look, reports Watson, who has joined in the adulation for the baked treats that “unite cultures,” “heal wounds” and “build bridges.” (Watson’s first Instagram post about the muffins currently has more than 16,000 likes. One of Christiansen’s chocolate muffin Tik Tok videos has been viewed 11.6 million times.)
“I'm so glad you asked about the muffins,” Watson said. “Yeah, the muffins are amazing. Just keep making videos about muffins is my main goal. … The village in general is quite a cool place. Very rarely will there be places like that where you can meet so many new people. I've been taking selfies with every delegation, every country. So that's my other goal, to collect, I think, 204 selfies. And then, yeah, keep eating my muffins. They're great.”
