Speed climber Sam Watson hopes to bring Olympic gold back to Southlake

Speed climbing is one of the newer events at the Olympic games. The competition consists of two climbers who race up identical 15-meter-walls. The fastest climbers can do it in under five seconds –  including Sam Watson.

Watson is an 18-year-old from Southlake, Texas who happens to hold the three fastest times ever in speed climbing. He broke the world record twice in one day in a competition back in April. Watson spoke to the Texas Standard about competing in Paris. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: Why are you so fast at climbing up walls?

Sam Watson: That’s definitely an in-depth question.

I think being an athlete for my sport is pretty similar to being an athlete for any sport. So I’ve really personally focused on everything outside of what I do on the wall to be the best athlete I can.

So my lifestyle outside of climbing – my sleep, my nutrition, the workouts I do, my strength conditioning… Being just the best athlete I can be. And then, of course, just technically figuring out how I can climb faster.

So when you’re climbing up the wall, what goes through your mind?

It depends. Typically, like at a very high level, you don’t have a ton going through your mind and you’re just kind of focused and in kind of a flow state.

I think about my breath beforehand. When you’re on the wall, it’s so muscle memory that you don’t really need to think about anything. Sometimes you give yourself a cue of like, you want to do a specific move either faster or a little bit differently. But typically when you’re competing, you’re not thinking about something to do on the wall.

So do you know the configuration of the wall you’re going to be climbing before you get there, or is it a surprise?

Yeah, it’s standardized every time, but you can really get into very, very detailed specifics of how to do certain moves faster.

So for example, like if you’re skipping a hold because it’s too far left or too far right, or you’re thinking about your specific body position or your rotation of your certain part of your limbs are on a certain hold because you can get a tiny bit more power because it’s a more optimal, biomechanical position. That’s also a part of it.

And it gets really in-depth on certain parts of the road as well. So it really has taken a long time, and every speed climber has been trying to get better over the years. And it’s been quite a long process that is ever evolving.

When we talked at the start of this conversation about why you’re good at this and the dedication that it takes, what you described was a very disciplined regimen. It seems like you have to kind of put this in the center of your life and revolve around it. What is it about this sport that makes you want to do that? That makes you fall in love with it?

I like the concept of having this much of the sport being uncharted waters. It’s so new and it’s so evolving.

Every other sport, there’s so many other people that have kind of done it before. But now I can kind of be at the forefront in doing new things in my sport. And being a pioneer and a precursor to inspire other athletes, as well, is a major motivating factor for me.

When did you realize that you might be pretty good at this?

“Might be pretty good”? Maybe about three years ago. “Could be the best”? Maybe about a year ago.

What was it that made you make that leap? To think, “oh, I might be the best in the world to climb up walls.”

That’s something I don’t want to take full personal credit for. I think getting a full strength and conditioning coach that made me workout plans and was able to train me as a full-on athlete really did help. He had an experience in rugby beforehand and contact sports, if you know anything about them, requires a pretty good amount of like explosivity and training for that. Even though I don’t play a contact sport, it was very helpful.

And then I think I just wanted to keep improving throughout my career. So every event I would just try and improve and improve and improve and it kind of just got to the level it has now. So that the mentality has kind of always been there. But then I wouldn’t say there was really one moment that I personally thought I could take that leap.

Well, you are about to go to the Paris Olympics. Let’s set aside the sport, the competition, for a moment and tell me what you’re looking forward to about just that experience being there in Paris at such an iconic event.

I definitely think representing my country is a big one. Being there with a lot of my friends around climbing is also very, very cool – to see these people also succeed and to be at this stage.

So yeah, there’s a lot of other things I’m looking forward to. Meeting all the other sports and going to these villages and going to other events and watching other sports, for sure. It’s going to be a blast.

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