‘I’m Fighting Gravity.’ Climber Sam Watson Might Be One of the Fastest Olympians in Paris

If American Sam Watson wins the inaugural Olympic gold medal in speed climbing—the new stand-alone event in which athletes scale a 15-m wall in around five sec., or less—he’ll have some pretty sweet bragging rights. “My claim to fame is that I’m the fastest Olympian, assuming I get the world record at the Olympic Games,” Watson says in a video interview from Salt Lake City, where in early July he was training for the Paris Games. 

Watson, 18, does point out that you can quibble with that assertion...