Tomiko Itooka continued mountain climbing even in her 70s, and even reached the summit of Mount Ontake, 3,067 meters above sea level, wearing sneakers.
A 116-year-old Japanese woman is set to be recognised as the world's oldest person by the Guinness World Records.
The US-based Gerontology Research Group announced on Wednesday that former mountaineer Tomiko Itooka, born May 23, 1908, will take over the title.
Itooka was set to become the next record holder after Maria Branyas-Morella of Spain died on Tuesday at age 117 in a nursing home in Catalonia, her family said.
The Gerontology Research Group (GRG) is pleased to announce that Tomiko Itooka (born 23 May 1908, age 116), a resident of Ashiya City, Hyogo Prefecture, is a candidate for a Guinness World Record. translation: The title of the world's oldest person. https://t.co/W4xiEvpXc9 pic.twitter.com/z4fdZaJHin
— Gerontology Research Group (GRG) (@GerontologyGrg) August 20, 2024
Itooka, who lives in Ashiya, Hyogo Prefecture, was born in the same year that the Wright brothers made their first public flights in Europe and America, and that the first long-distance radio message was transmitted from the Eiffel Tower.
The mother of three continued climbing into her 70s and has twice summited Japan's 3,067-metre (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake, surprising her guides by doing so in trainers rather than hiking boots.
At 100, she climbed the long stone steps of Japan's Ashiya Shrine without using a walking stick, according to the group, which claims to have the world's largest “database of super-elderly people”.
The previous record holder, who survived the 1918 Spanish Flu, two world wars and the Spanish Civil War, contracted COVID-19 in 2020 just weeks after his 113th birthday but made a full recovery.
The American-born actress previously posted on her family's X account that “the time is approaching”.
“Don't cry. I hate tears. And above all, don't suffer because of me. I'll be happy wherever I go,” she said.
Guinness World Records will officially recognise Branyas as the world's oldest person in January 2023, following the death of French nun Lucile Landon at the age of 118.
The oldest confirmed person to date is Jeanne Louise Calment, a French woman who died in 1997 at the age of 122 years and 164 days.
