PARIS: Britain's Toby Roberts was as surprised as everyone else when he clinched the boulder and lead gold medal at the Paris Games on Friday in a major upset that saw the clear favourite from Japan, Sorato Anraku, settling for silver.
In a nail-biting end that had the Le Bourget crowd on the edges of their seats, Anraku, the last to go in the competition, fell just short of the hold on the lead wall that he needed for the title.
His premature drop confirmed Roberts's win, crowning the Surrey native the Olympics' first boulder and lead champion and prompting the 19-year-old to raise his hands to his head in sheer disbelief.
"To be honest I literally have no words. I don't think this is ever going to sink in," he said.
Asked about the moment he realised he had come out ahead, he said: "I was happy with the silver so I was just sat there completely happy and then to find out that I got gold, it was just an incredible moment."
With a total 155.2 points from the combined boulder and lead events, Roberts overtook Anraku's 145.4. Austria's veteran climber Jakob Schubert earned a back-to-back bronze with 139.6.
Sport climbing is making its second Olympic appearance but the Paris Games are the first where the combined boulder and lead event has been split from speed as is the norm for the sport.
In boulder, athletes have a time limit to negotiate four boulder "problems" on a 4.5-metre-high wall, earning points on the highest scoring holds they manage. In lead, they aim to climb a 15-metre wall as high as possible in a single attempt.
The day had started off well for Anraku, who immediately wowed the sold-out crowd as he got a perfect 25 points on the first of the four boulder problems, "flashing" it in under 45 seconds out of the allotted four minutes.
But after topping his second boulder, the field suddenly looked more level as the 17-year-old failed to solve the last two. At the end of the boulder round, American Colin Duffy trailed him by just one point, with Roberts not far behind.
"My bouldering in the middle section was all over the place," Anraku said. "I had a mediocre performance in both boulder and lead so I'm quite disappointed."
The finalists' only two teenagers topped the podium but Schubert proved that they had a long career ahead of them by winning his second bronze at the age of 33, the oldest of the eight. He and the Czech Republic's Adam Ondra, 31, scored highest in lead, both topping the wall to draw a standing ovation from the crowd.
"He's incredibly strong," Roberts said of Schubert, his climbing hero. "I have no doubts we'll be seeing him in LA." - Reuters