“I made it! I never imagined I could make it to the top of Mount Everest at age 80. This is the world’s best feeling, although I’m totally exhausted. Even at 80, I can still do quite well,” said Japan’s Yuichiro Miura, from summit of Mount Qomolangma (Everest) on Thursday.

    AN 80-year-old Japanese mountaineer Thursday became the oldest person to reach the top of Mount Qomolangma, also known as Mount Everest — although his record may last only a few days. An 81-year-old Nepalese man, who held the previous record, plans his own ascent next week.

    Yuichiro Miura, who also conquered the 8,844.43-meter peak when he was 70 and 75, reached the summit at 9:05 a.m. local time Thursday, according to a Nepalese mountaineering official and Miura’s Tokyo-based support team.

    Miura and his son Gota called them from the summit, prompting his daughter Emili to smile broadly and clap her hands in footage on public broadcaster NHK.

    The climbers planned to stick around the summit for about half an hour, take photos and then start to descend, his office said.

    Nepalese mountaineering official Gyanendra Shrestha, at Everest base camp, confirmed that Miura had reached the summit, making him the oldest person to do so.

    The previous oldest was Nepal’s Min Bahadur Sherchan, who accomplished the feat at age 76 in 2008, just a day before Miura reached the top at age 75.

    Sherchan, now 81, was preparing to scale the peak next week despite digestive problems he suffered several days ago. On Wednesday, Sherchan said by telephone from the base camp that he was in good health and “ready to take up the challenge.”

    Sherchan’s team is also facing financial difficulties. It hasn’t received the financial help that the Nepal Government announced it would provide it. Purna Chandra Bhattarai, chief of Nepal’s mountaineering department, said the aid proposal was still under consideration.

    On his expedition’s website, Miura explained his attempt to scale Everest at such an advanced age: “It is to challenge (my) own ultimate limit. It is to honor the great Mother Nature.”

    He said a successful climb would raise the bar for what is possible.

    “And if the limit of age 80 is at the summit of Mount Everest, the highest place on earth, one can never be happier,” he said.

    Miura conquered the mountain despite undergoing heart surgery in January for an irregular heartbeat, or arrhythmia, his fourth heart operation since 2007, according to his daughter. He also fractured his pelvis and left thigh bone in a 2009 skiing accident.

    “I am still healthy and strong. I think I have a good chance to reach the summit of Everest,” he said via phone earlier this month.

    To prepare, Miura walked three times a week with loads of 25 to 30 kilograms on his back.

    “I have a dream to climb Everest at this age,” he said. “If you have a dream, never give up. Dreams come true.”

    Miura became famous when he was a young man as a daredevil speed skier.

    He skied down Everest’s South Col in 1970, using a parachute to brake his descent. The feat was captured in the Oscar-winning 1975 documentary, “The Man Who Skied Down Everest.” It wasn’t until Miura was 70, however, that he first climbed all the way to the summit of Everest. When he summited again at 75, he claimed to be the only man to accomplish the feat twice in his 70s. After that, he said he was determined to climb again at age 80.

    According to Smithsonian Magazine, during the 1960s he became the first man to ski Mount Vinson in Antarctica, Mount Fuji in Japan, the Towers of Paine in Chile, and Mount Popocatepetl in Mexico. He also set the world speed record for skiing in 1964 with a velocity of almost 172 km per hour.

    This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first expedition to reach the summit of Everest: New Zealand mountaineer Sir Edmund Hilary and Nepalese Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay made it to the top of the mountain May 29, 1953.

    Nearly 4,000 climbers have reached the Everest summit since the pioneering May 1953 climb, while 240 have lost their lives on its slopes.

    Miura is not the first record-setter on Everest this climbing season.

    Raha Moharrak became the first Saudi Arabian woman to conquer the peak, while Sudarshan Gautam, a 30-year-old Nepali-born Canadian who lost both arms in an accident, became the first double amputee to summit.(SD-Agencies)

    Oldest woman atop Everest

    THE oldest woman to climb Everest is also Japanese — Tamae Watanabe. She was 73 when she reached the top last year, beating her own age record for an Everest climb by a woman. That was set 11 years ago.

    Watanabe was born in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan, on Nov. 21, 1938.

    After completing study at Tsuru University, she worked as public office employee of Kanagawa Prefecture. It was at this time, at age 28, she began mountain climbing. In 1977, she climbed Mount McKinley. She then climbed Mont Blanc, Mount Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua.

    After her retirement, she returned to her hometown and in May 2002 she became the then-oldest woman to climb Mount Everest. Ten years later, in May 2012, she broke her own record, when she at the age of 73 again scaled Mount Everest.(SD-Agencies)