Speed climbing is as fast as it's ever been - and Samuel Watson has the moves to go even faster

“You can analyse every single move... it's so incredibly nuanced. And I like the idea that you can never be perfect at it.”

You’d think that Samuel Watson, one of the fastest speed climbers in the world, was talking about his discipline, which will debut as a medal event at Paris 2024 next summer.

But the 17-year-old American is actually describing one of his favourite hobbies: Playing chess.

“It’s very similar to climbing,” he confirmed with a laugh. “You're just trying to improve [and] every move leads to a position.”

The climbing improvement for Watson in the last year, since he made his senior World Cup debut, nearly matches his speed up the wall: Lightning fast. The Dallas native captured his first World Cup gold in Edinburgh in September, just days after he had won bronze at the IFSC Youth World Championships in his hometown.

“It’s just crazy to look back”, Watson told Olympics.com in a recent exclusive interview. “I’ll look at my training journals and be like, ‘What was I thinking? I was an idiot.’ But then I realize, ‘Oh that’s how I got from here to there.’

“It’s inspiring and motivating,” he added. “I think about how I’m going to improve in the next year and how I'm excited to call myself an idiot in 2024, in the same way I would now.”

Samuel Watson: With a pin in Paris 2024

Watson can still remember the day that the announcement was made that speed climbing would receive its own medal at the Olympic Games in 2024. It was December 2020 and he was only 14, but – he believes – it changed his life trajectory from that moment.

“For me personally, [the Olympics went from] a crazy offshoot dream to, 'I could actually do this,’” Watson explained. “The funniest thing about it was I was only 14 and didn’t have any competition experience, let alone any success, but as time has gone on, more and more people have joined my circle with their support.”

Sport climbing made its debut in the Olympic programme in 2021, when Tokyo 2020 held the it as a single medal event, combining speed climbing with lead and bouldering. But speed is – as its name describes – all about getting up the wall as fast as possible, is commonly seen as a different skillset from the other two disciplines, which are more slow-moving, technical and nuanced.

Watson, who was already making waves as a junior, saw the split to his advantage.

“As soon as that medal was split, I was like, ‘Okay, if I purely focus on speed climbing and I give 100 percent of my human effort, I know I can make these Olympic Games.’”

Watson, who is ever an analytical and detail-oriented athlete and person, now has a pin in his training journal, a gift from a friend. The pin? It’s the Paris 2024 logo.

“I see it every day,” he said.

Samuel Watson: Embracing the idea of learning

Aside from chess, Watson is an avid language learner, with an over 500-day streak of daily Indonesian lessons (to help him converse with Indonesian climbers, some of the fastest in the world), and some German, too.

As he’s made his fast rise up the speed climbing ranks, his goals as an athlete have been not unlike those in language: Learn something new every day.

“The idea of improvement, like Kaizen, as the Japanese call it, where every single event there is something that wasn't perfect and there was something that we can really break down,” Watson explained. “I try to figure out mistakes, why it they went wrong and what I could do better [next time].”

Watson said he’s spent time getting advice from other climbers and – especially – young athletes who have found fast success, to understand how he might be able to maximise his own training, which is based primarily in Dallas, but also at USA Climbing’s center in Salt Lake City.

“I sort of exploded onto the scene, [so] I tried to balance the way that I am managing myself and managing expectations and pressure... all these things of being a successful athlete,” he said. “It’s really a personal learning experience.”

‘Sub-six Sam’ no more

But as Watson has made his improvements, so too has the global speed climbing community – and quickly. Just last month, Veddriq Leonardo of Indonesia set a new men’s world record, scaling the 15m speed wall in just 4.9 seconds.

Leonardo remains the only man to have gone sub-5 in competition, dropping the men’s record from 5.25s in May 2021 and 5.17 a year ago.

Watson has gone 5.02 and 5.13 this season, but finished in ninth and sixth (though his times were in qualifying rounds, not the final) at World Cup events in Seoul and Jakarta, respectively, showing just how fervent the speed climbing competition is over a year out from the Olympic Games.

His previous training nickname, “sub-six Sam” (for clocking a time under six seconds) is... suddenly out of fashion.

“With the state of speed climbing, a sub-six will get you like 50th place at some World Cups. So I think we might have to move on” from that name, Watson said with a smile.

He has, however, broken the 5-second mark himself – in practice. An achievement he said means much to him.

“I think it's a bit of a contrarian opinion, but for me, I really value performance in practice,” he said. “Obviously not over performance in competition, but [that] really gives you a confidence perspective that knowing you can do it... it does really help.”

Watson said Leonardo’s sub-5 doesn’t impact his belief that he can do it himself, saying “someone else's ability to do it doesn’t affect my ability.”

But that 4.96 in practice? That is a series of chess move you can bet he’s studying.

“I wanted to break that psychological barrier,” he said. “That was my main focus of training. I think that really helps me from a motivation standpoint and from a sort of a breakdown standpoint of, ‘This is what I need to do to train to get that [time].’ And training to get that will help me for what I need eventually for the competition season.”