Yuji Hirayama

Yuji Hirayama is a Japanese rock climber, born on 23 February 1969 in Tokyo, who specialised in lead climbing competitions. He won the lead World Cup title twice, in 1998, when he became the first Asian climber to win it, and again in 2000. He is best known for being the first climber recorded as onsighting a route of grade 8c, White Zombie at Baltzola Cave in Spain on 6 October 2004. An earlier claimed onsight of Mortal Kombat in France in 1999 was downgraded by Hirayama himself to 8b+. He also set several speed records on The Nose of El Capitan with Hans Florine, the last of them 2 hours 37 minutes 5 seconds in 2008. In 2010 he opened a climbing gym, Climb Park Base Camp, in Saitama prefecture.