Team USA
Sam Watson has had the time of his life in Paris: two world records and a bronze medal.
Timing is often everything in the Olympics, of course.
Sam Watson, an 18-year-old from Southlake, knows all about timing’s various dimensions.
Watson set two world records at the Paris Olympics in sport climbing. He just didn’t do so at the right … times.
Watson, the heavy favorite to win gold after scaling 50 feet in 4.75 seconds in an elimination heat, was eliminated in the semifinals on Thursday with a climb of 4.93 seconds to Wu Peng’s 4.85.
Yet, vying for the bronze medal, he came back to break his own world record with a 4.74-second climb to earn a place on the medal stand with a victory over Reza Alipour Shenazandifard of Iran.
That’s the fastest time ever run in a timed event in the Olympics.
“That’s a cool title," he said to reporters of being the fastest ever, "no one can take that away I suppose.”
In speed climbing, athletes scale a 50-foot wall against one another, climbing up a series of holds to a red buzzer at the top of the wall.
Speed climbing debuted in the 2020 Tokyo Games. (The Tokyo Olympics were conducted in 2021.)
Leonardo Veddriq of Indonesia won the gold with a time of 4.75 in the final. Peng, of China, won silver with 4.77.
“I want to win these races and I want to get to the top of the podium,” said Watson. “But I did go a lot faster in practice and I did have the idea that it was possible [to get a world record].
“I told myself, if I bring the athlete that I have become to the Olympic Games, it is very possible I can break a world record on this stage in front of this crowd, and it definitely was a really cool life experience.”
Here’s guessing the 2024 Games will not be the last we hear of Sam Watson.
Burleson’s Conner Prince won silver in men’s skeet in his Olympic debut, finishing behind his mentor Vincent Hancock. Hancock is Prince’s teacher at Northlake Shooting Sports. Prince hit 57 of 60 shots. Hancock hit 58 out of 60.
"That last pass, where I knew he and I were 1-2, I didn't have as much adrenaline as I had at the beginning of the final," Prince said to reporters.
"I wouldn't say it wore off. It was just more of a relief on that last pass, just because I knew that we did it. Obviously, I wanted to get gold, but I don't care. He and I went 1-2 like we were talking about doing. The fact that we made it reality is remarkable."
Hancock won skeet gold in 2008, ’12, and ’21. Hancock also won silver in the mixed team skeet with Austen Smith, another student of his, from Keller.
Smith, a student at UT Arlington, won bronze in the women’s individual skeet.
TCU women’s basketball player Hailey Van Lith is bringing bling back to Fort Worth. Van Lith, a Washington state native, and her 3-on-3 teammates won bronze.
Our eyes, too, were peeled on the men’s decathlon.
Lindon Victor was the cover story for out August issue.
Representing Grenada, the 31-year-old who trains in Fort Worth headed to Paris coming off a bronze medal at the World Championships last year. He followed that up with another bronze in Paris.
Read about his journey to Europe here.
