A retired Japanese teacher aged 71 has become the world's oldest person to climb to the top of Mount Everest, mountaineering groups said Tuesday.
Katsusuke Yanagisawa reached the top of the world's highest mountain on May 22, the Japan Mountaineering Association said.
Yanagisawa said he enjoyed a sunny breeze at the top for 30 minutes and was so happy, he felt like singing.
"I was pretty much at ease mentally at the summit, like I could sing a song," he told Japan's national broadcaster NHK from his hotel in Kathmandu.
"It was a fantastic feeling," Yanagisawa separately told the Shinano Mainichi Shimbun, his hometown newspaper, from a hotel in Kathmandu after the descent.
"I was glad to reach the summit because, after that, all that was left was to climb down," he told the daily.
Yanagisawa, who lives in the central mountain city of Nagano, beat a record set the previous year by a compatriot.
"We received an e-mail saying they 'completed the job,' meaning they successfully climbed to the top and returned safely," Syunji Takekawa, a colleague of Yanagisawa's mountain guide Hiroyuki Kuraoka, told AFP.
Previously the oldest climber to reach the highest point on the planet was Takao Arayama, who was 70 when he reached the 8,848-metre (29,198 foot) summit in May 2006, the mountaineering association said.
Yanagisawa said he went with a team including New Zealanders and Japanese who scaled the mountain from the Tibetan side of Everest.
He reached Kathmandu on Monday and will file paperwork to claim his record.
The Japanese are renowned for their longevity and a growing number of fit senior citizens have taken to conquering mountains in retirement.
A string of Japanese have successively broke the record for the oldest climbers of Everest.
One of the most famous Japanese conquerors of Everest was Junko Tabei, who in 1975 became the first woman on top of the peak.
