Speed Climber Sam Watson Set a New World Record—But Didn’t Win Gold

In honor of speed climbing, an event in which races can take less than 5 seconds to complete, let’s get this story done real fast.

American Sam Watson earned the rarest of Olympic distinctions on Thursday at the Le Bourget Climbing Venue: he set a new world record without winning gold. Watson scaled the top of a 15-m wall with holds in 4.74 seconds, but did so in the bronze-medal race. In the semifinals, moments beforehand, a tiny error cost Watson, as Wu Peng of China slapped the buzzer at the top first...