Yuji Hirayama (52) comments on his and Japan's success

Yuji Hirayama did his last 9a, Peaceful Mountain in Mt Futago, just last month further confirming his status as a true climbing legend:

"Since 1986, when Yuji did Les Spécialistes 8b+, the now 52-year-old has been on the cutting edge. In 1991, he won his first World Cup and in 1998, as well as in 2000, he won overall. After his competition career, he made the FA of Flat Mountain 9a/+ in 2003 and the next year he onsighted White Zombie 8c. A few years later he did Cobra Crack 8c trad and the FA of an MP in Borneo including one 9a pitch. In his resume, being one of the best multi-discipline climbers in history, he has also climbed boulders up to 8B+, DWS up to 8b+, several big walls including also several times setting the Speed record on El Cap. Since 2010, he runs Climb Park Base Camp which over the years has organized several competitions. He has also been active in the Japanese Federation and helping out IFSC in getting climbing into the Olympics. Just over a year ago, he made the FA of Hanabi 8c+ also in Mt Futago."

Can you tell us about your weekly climbing life and what your ambition is nowadays?
Basically I train four days a week. Not so specific, I climb with friends and try my project once or twice a week. I climb and train both indoors and outdoors. I feel I need both. Now I don’t have my own line to make a FA but I would like to climb two routes. One is Shive light 8c+ from Sachi (Amma) and the other one is Daydream another 5.14 (8b+) trad route!! Both routes are very short and unique lines. I need to train and climb on the route a lot💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

How do you deal with getting older and still pushing to your max?
It is more delicate to prepare for example. I have to be careful to eat and drink. Less climbing volumes and good warm up😆 But human beings want to improve in life. And I’m the same and until die I guess 😆.

Why do you think Japanese climbers have dominated the boulder comp scene and what about the future?
I think because we have a lot of small bouldering gyms and I guess we’ve got a good community to grow up to be a good climber in this community. Now the US and European climbing scenes are having dynamic improvements so not easy to continue with the good results. But I think some of the Japanese climbers can have good results.

I think Japanese climbers gain the confidence during the last 30 years little by little. Today they are thinking always to be the winner of the comp. I guess not easy to be one of the best always. They need to improve in order to win and they need to feel and train what the route setters want to create and express.