Teenager Roberts wins climbing gold for Team GB
Toby Roberts wins Great Britain’s 14th gold in Paris and their first medal in sport climbing at an Olympics in the boulder and lead event.
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Toby Roberts won Great Britain’s 14th gold in Paris and their first medal in sport climbing at an Olympics with a dramatic victory in the boulder and lead event.
The 19-year-old had his head in his hands, unable to believe his win, when Japanese world silver medallist and favourite Sorato Anraku slipped on his ascent up the 15m wall to give the Englishman victory.
Roberts, who improved his climbing on a DIY wall built in his dad’s garden, was third in the first part of the competition, contested across four boulders.
He then put himself in provisional first place with only Anraku to come by scoring 92.1 points out of 100.
Anraku only needed 86 points on the lead wall to knock Roberts into silver, but he lost his grip, resulting in gasps from the 6,000-strong crowd.
“I am just lost for words,” Roberts told the BBC.
“To find out that I had got the gold in that moment was truly incredible.”
Roberts’ gold means climbing, introduced at the last Games in Tokyo, is the 44th different sport Great Britain have won an Olympic medal, across summer and winter Olympics.
Anruku, 17, took silver for Japan while 33-year-old veteran Jakob Schubert took bronze.
Britain’s Hamish McArthur was fifth.
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6 hours ago
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26 July
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From back garden to Olympic champion
Roberts was 12 when it was announced climbing would make its Olympic debut in Tokyo.
It was from there he and his father, Tristian, mapped out a route to the Olympics.
During the Covid-19 lockdowns he “leveled up”, by practicing in his father’s garden and soon after his father rented accommodation in Austria to gain access to better faculties.
He won his first World Cup medal in 2022 and last year won golds in the boulder and lead individual events.
At the Olympics both events are combined and he achieved the third-best scores in each to secure overall gold.
“I have been training for this moment my whole life,” added Roberts.
“To say it hasn’t sunk in is an understatement. I imagine later it will be a flood of emotions. It is a goal I have been training towards for like 10 years.”
