Everest record old news for Japanese climber, 75

by Sanjay Jha | May 26, 2008 at 10:40 pm | 137 views | add comment

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A Japanese elderly mountaineer Yuichiro Miura in his 76 yrs had scaled the Mount everest and set the record of oldest mountaineer. He broke the record of Nepalese Min Bahadur Sherchan, who had scaled the world's highest peak on Sunday. Mr. Miura has undergone two bouts of heart surgery.

Elderly mountaineer Yuichiro Miura, who has undergone two bouts of heart surgery, congratulated Nepal's Min Bahadur Sherchan, 76, who scaled the world's highest peak on Sunday.

"Congratulations to the 76-year-old for his successful ascent!" Miura said in a statement issued Sunday from the C5 camp near the top of Everest.

"As a fellow septuagenarian, I have also finally reached C5 after a challenging ascent. I will now try my best to reach the same summit, hopefully tomorrow," he said.

His supporters later said Miura reached the 8,848-metre (29,028-feet) summit at 0148 GMT. They said he met Sherchan on May 16 at the Everest Base Camp and the two wished each other well.

Miura was hoping to reclaim the record set in 2003, when he climbed Everest at the age of 70. The record was beaten last year by a retired Japanese schoolteacher, 71-year-old Katsusuke Yanagisawa.

Miura went ahead with the latest climb despite undergoing two heart operations since his previous ascent.

Backed by tech-savvy supporters, Miura has been in constant contact with a medical team in Tokyo who monitored his vital data sent to them from Everest and carried out electrocardiograms.

Miura originally planned to go through Tibet for the summit but changed plans and went to Nepal due to the recent unrest in the Chinese-ruled territory.