Paris Olympics: USA climber Sam Watson clinches bronze with another world record

PARIS, France — Just a few days after breaking his own world record of 4.75 seconds in an elimination climb, University of Utah student Sam Watson earned his first Olympic medal.

The 18-year-old climber edged his own world record (again) in 4.74 seconds to secure the bronze medal Thursday in Le Bourget, France.

Earlier Thursday in a quarterfinal, Watson beat out New Zealand’s Julian David in 5.03 seconds up the wall. He lost by 0.08 seconds to China’s Wu Peng in the semifinals, sending him to the small final — essentially the bronze-medal match — against Iran’s Reza Alipour Shenazandifard.

Wu earned silver with a final run of 4.77 in the big final, while Inodnesia’s Leonardo Veddriq won gold in 4.75 seconds.

But Watson, who will start classes at the U. this fall while training with USA Climbing that is headquartered in Salt Lake City, scaled the wall in 4.74 seconds for the first medal of any color for the United States’ climbing delegation in the Paris Summer Games.

“I’m very happy to be on this stage, and I have no regrets,” Watson said in a team release. “To be an Olympic medalist, to hold it in my hand with a piece of the Eiffel Tower in it — nobody can ever take that away from me.”

Fellow sport climber Colin Duffy will compete in the men’s combined final Friday.