American Sam Watson Sets Speed Climbing World Record
Sam Watson, 18, broke the world record twice at the Wujiang World Cup this past week. During his first run in the qualification round, he clocked 4.85 seconds, beating the previous record of 4.90 set by Indonesia’s Veddriq Leonardo. During his second run of the day he established yet another record, running up the 50-foot wall in a mind-boggling 4.79 seconds.
Watson, from Texas, qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympic Games after winning the Pan-American Games last October.
Watson began climbing at age 5. He joined Team Texas and began participating in lead, bouldering, and speed competitions until, during the pandemic, he fell in love with speed climbing and devoted himself exclusively to the discipline. “During the pandemic, we weren’t really sure when competitions would be held, and (in the Dallas area) outdoor climbing is just not very accessible,” he says. “Since I wasn’t thinking about a project or a future competition, I was focused on how I actually wanted to get better. And I really love the process of training and getting better on the same route.” Watson adds it helped that he was surrounded by a great community of enthusiastic speed climbers. His results on the international stage have been good from the start: he finished fifth in his first World Cup season in 2022, then third in 2023.
Watson was already clocking record-breaking times in practice last year. In Wujiang, he says he actually climbed the fastest he’s ever climbed during a couple of his runs, but his reaction times were not his best, making the overall times slower. This, he adds, was somewhat intentional. A false start occurs if the competitor moves off the ground faster than 0.1 seconds after the final (go!) beep. In the event of a false start by a single competitor, the other competitor gets to re-do the race solo, effectively automatically winning (if both competitors false start, then both athletes will get to re-run the race). “Anything under .1 seconds is considered too fast for human’s reaction times,” explains Watson.
“I don’t want to risk a false start in competition by trying to beat my personal best practice times,” he says. “But in theory, if I got off the ground perfectly, then I would have gotten an even faster world record.”
Watson trains four to fives days per week (two days on, one day off), alternating between strength training and climbing. Matthew Maddison, USA Climbing’s speed team manager, designs Watson’s strength training program, while fellow speed climber Albert Ok guides Watson’s on-the-wall routine. Watson also works with a nutritionist and sports psychologist, in addition to drawing on expertise from other fellow competitors.
Watson is headed to Utah this summer to train full-time at the USA Climbing Training Center. He’ll begin his first semester at the University of Utah in the fall, where he plans to study supply chain management. “I’m excited for the next phase of life, but for the next couple months, my only focus is going to be the Olympics.” He adds:
“I think the Olympics will be a great platform for climbing and also for myself. I have sort of acknowledged that the Olympics are not really just about competing, and it would be kind of taking something away from the experience to say that it is; the Olympics are bigger than that. But of course, trying to win a gold medal is the goal!”
Watson finished the Wujiang World Cup in second after “a slight error” in the final race against China’s Peng Wu. The next Speed World Cup will take place in Salt Lake City from May 3–5.
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