Climbing sensation Toby Roberts describes the thrill of ascending his sport’s toughest challenges as a disconnect between the mind and body.
And the 18-year-old's mind is still catching up with his body’s most recent feat after qualifying a Paris 2024 spot in style at the European Olympic Qualifier in Laval.
The Elstead teenager has documented his journey to the top this year through vlogging and is set to become Team GB’s second-ever climber to reach an Olympic Games, following in the footsteps of Shauna Coxsey MBE after an expertly executed roadmap to the pinnacle of the sport.
“It still hasn’t really sunk in,” he said. “It’s something that I’ve been working towards for six years.
“Every training session since climbing got announced as part of the Olympics when I was 12 went towards my goal of trying to qualify and compete.
“For that to come true just over a week ago feels so surreal.
“You almost have to let go when you go out onto the stage and let your body take over.
“Some of the bouldering moves are so complex, there are so many different aspects to it and your body is doing so many different things that you’ve got to focus on.
“You can’t repeat that in your brain quick enough, you have to rely on your body taking over.”
Qualification was made even sweeter at the last opportunity to make Paris 2024 this climbing season after Roberts narrowly missed out on an Olympic berth in the summer, coming fifth at the World Championships in Bern.
In Laval, Roberts, who only competed in his first season in senior categories this year, was sat in fourth place following the Boulder final with just a final climb in Lead to go.
With a table-topping climb, Roberts clinched qualification in heroic fashion as the only climber of the day to reach the top and emotion flooded out of the young star.
“At the World Championships, I really let the pressure get to me,” he explained. “Suddenly I’m climbing with a lot of baggage and a lot of weight on my shoulders.
“The three months after Bern, I was focusing on my training just for it to be really fun and enjoyable.
“Every single round in that competition in Laval, I didn’t feel any of that pressure, I didn’t think about the result.
“It worked out really well going through all the rounds and then that final climb, coming out for that and to execute and nail it to get that place felt incredible.
“There was a huge emotional release after that final climb that made everything worth it.”
With his dad, Tristian, as coach and a decade of climbing under his belt involving six-hour drives from Surrey up to Malham Cove, Roberts lives and breathes the world of Boulder and Lead.
He has an entire archive of footage from his first year competing at senior level on YouTube with an audience of more than 10,000.
As Gen Z come of Olympic age, Roberts is capitalising on the opportunity to allow budding climbers into the world of an elite athlete – an innovation for the sport and its status.
“What’s really missing in climbing is giving people that insight into a World Cup climber at the highest level,” he said.
“You’re just seeing an end product, you’re not seeing the training, how that individual deals with the pressure.
“It’ll be really cool to look back at the end of my climbing career and think wow, this is my first ever season competing and I’ve got all these videos to show for it and to look back.”
Find out more about Toby's YouTube channel here.
But one place Roberts cannot document is ‘isolation’, a period where climbers sit and wait to compete with no idea how those who have gone before them have fared.
“So many people are doing a lot of other things, listening to music, doing breathing exercises, it’s a really intense environment,” he said.
“It can be quite easy to let someone else’s process affect yours or get psyched out by them.
“It’s important to not think about that so you can go over to the competition area and be as relaxed as possible.”
Having made its debut in 2020, sport climbing is returning in 2024 with medals to be won in a new combined format, encompassing Lead and Boulder, with Speed a separate discipline.
Following six years of navigating ‘isolation’, gruelling training and devotion to scaling heights most would be too scared to even attempt, Roberts has achieved the goal that once seemed more like a dream.
“With my parents, we created a six-year plan to try and qualify,” He added. “There has been milestones that I’ve had to hit to get to where I am now.
“I had to get on the GB team by a certain age to compete in the European and the World Championships so I could have a bit of experience to go to this qualifying event.
“There wasn't a huge amount of breathing space. If I missed one of the milestones, someone else might have taken up the opportunity.
“For six years of training to pay off feels incredible.”
Sportsbeat 2023