Olympic gold medal winner Toby Roberts in action. Photo: Lena Drapella/IFSC

Climber Toby Roberts has struck Olympic gold, winning Great Britain’s first ever medal in the sport.

Roberts, 19, took first place in the boulder and lead competition when his main rival Anraku Sorato fell from the climbing wall, handing victory to the Briton.

The Paris Olympics are the second recent games in which sport climbing was staged. Shauna Coxsey represented Great Britain in the 2021 Tokyo Olympiad.

Briton Hamish McArthur finished in fifth place in this year’s finals held at Le Bourget. At these games, the sport-climbing competition was split into two disciplines: speed; and bouldering and lead.

Roberts and the Japanese 17-year-old Anraku headed the rankings after the semi-finals, with the latter scoring 69.3 from the bouldering section, to Roberts’s 63.1. The Briton then scored 92.1 in his lead climb, giving him a total of 155.2 points.

He could only sit and wait as his rival took to the wall in his final lead attempt. He fell at point 76.1, giving him 145.4 points and handing the British teenager the gold medal.

Roberts, of Elstead, Surrey, said immediately after his victory: “I’ve got no words. I’m just riding on adrenaline right now, but I feel incredible.”

While Anraku was climbing he said: “At that point I already knew I had won the silver medal, so I was really happy anyway just watching him. Then to realise that I had just become Olympic champion, I was just: wow, no words.”

Third place went to Austria’s Jakob Schubert.

In the women’s competition, Janja Garnbret of Slovenia took the gold medal, with USA climber Brooke Raboutou in second place, ahead of Austria’s Jessica Pilz.

The men’s speed climbing event was won by Veddriq Leonardo of Indonesia, ahead of Wu Peng of China, with the USA’s Sam Watson taking the bronze medal. Poland’s Aleksandra Mirolsaw took the women’s gold, with Deng Lijuan of China second and Pole Aleksandra Kalucka third.