A 116-year-old Japanese woman who was once a mountain climber will be titled the world’s oldest person by Guinness World Records, a research group said on Wednesday (August 21, 2024). 117-year-old Spanish woman dies earlier this week.
Born on May 23, 1908, Tomiko Itsuka lives in the western Japanese city of Ashiya, the US-based Gerontology Research Group reported.
She is next in the race to become the world’s oldest person, after Maria Branyas Morera died in a nursing home in Spain on Monday, according to the group.
Ms Itsuka, a mother of three, was born the year the first long-distance radio message was sent from the Eiffel Tower and when the Wright brothers made their first public flights in Europe and America.
Even at age 70, Ms. Itsuka frequently went mountain climbing and twice climbed Japan’s 3,067-meter (10,062-foot) Mount Ontake – wearing sneakers rather than hiking boots, surprising her guide, the research group said.
The group reported that at the age of 100, she climbed the long stone stairs of the Ashiya Temple in Japan without the aid of a stick.