Introduction

A single medal and a single podium prior to the 2024 season might not appear all that impressive, but Sam was only sixteen years old when he won that Gold, and if you add his 2023 Continental Championships win, as well as his youth Silver and Bronze World Champs finishes, then you start to get a picture of just how capable this young athlete is.

That capability reached new heights at the 2024 Wujiang World Cup, where Samuel, whose previous PB was above 5 seconds, broke the world record not once but twice, first lowering it to 4.85, becoming the first person to climb under 4.90, and then - in the very next run - becoming the first person to climb under 4.80, as he set a new World Record of 4.79. He finished that World Cup in second place to China's Peng Wu, before winning the next two in a row.

Sam will be eighteen years old when he takes on the rest of the world at the Olympic Games in Paris, and, with the world's fastest time to his name, it will be exciting to see just how close to his own record he can get.

Qualification route

Pan American Games Santiago 2023: 1st Place (Speed)

Sam qualified for the Olympics by winning Gold at the Pan American Games in Santiago with a time of 5.37.

Trivia

In spite of a stumble in the final, Sam’s winning time of 5.37 at the Pan American Games was actually faster than the current Olympic record.

UKC prediction

2nd place

Samuel may be the fastest climber in the world, and he may have won the last two world cups, but we think that there's one climber who offers a little more consistency than Samuel, and will pip him to the post.