is a Japanese professional

rock climber Rock climbing is a sport in which participants climb up, across, or down natural rock formations. The goal is to reach the summit of a formation or the endpoint of a usually pre-defined route without falling. Rock climbing is a physically an ...

sport climber Sport climbing (or Bolted climbing) is a form of rock climbing that relies on permanent anchors (or bolts), permanently fixed into the rock for climber protection, in which a rope that is attached to the climber is clipped into the anchors t ...

and boulderer. She participates in both bouldering and lead climbing competitions. She is known for winning the

IFSC Climbing World Cup The IFSC Climbing World Cup is a series of climbing competitions held annually and organized by the International Federation of Sport Climbing (IFSC). The athletes compete in three disciplines: lead, bouldering and speed. The number of competi ...

in Bouldering four times. In her home country, she won Bouldering Japan Cup nine times consecutively from 2005 to 2014, which no other Japanese athlete has been able to match. She retired from competition climbing after competing and winning a bronze medal in the 2020 Summer Olympics.

Biography

Boulder Worldcup Vienna 29-05-2010b final14 Akiyo Noguchi

Noguchi grew up on a cattle farm in the

Ibaraki Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kantō region of Honshu. Ibaraki Prefecture has a population of 2,871,199 (1 June 2019) and has a geographic area of . Ibaraki Prefecture borders Fukushima Prefecture to the north, Tochigi Prefectur ...

. From a young age she would climb on buildings, trees and sometimes even on the cows. In 2000, when she was 11 years old, she tried a real climbing wall for the first time, during a holiday trip to

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic ce ...

. Back at home she immediately joined a local climbing gym. Her father later built her a climbing wall in an old cattle barn on the farm. In 2007, she started competing in the Bouldering World Cups, reaching the podium three times. In 2009, she won the World Cup in bouldering, over the previous year's champion Anna Stöhr. Noguchi repeated as champion in 2010, 2014 and 2015. In the 2011, 2012 and 2013 bouldering events at the World Cup she placed second. She has also won the combined climbling title at the World Cup three times. Noguchi was also awarded the La Sportiva Competition Award in 2010, "for her victories and the positive spirit she exudes during competitions". In 2019 Akiyo Noguchi won a silver medal in the combined competition at the climbing World Championship which qualified her for the 2020 Summer Olympics. Noguchi had contemplated retirement from competition climbing as early as 2016, but when it was announced that climbing would become an Olympic sport in 2020 for the first time she decided to try and qualify for Olympics in her home country. Noguchi attended her final

in Innsbruck in June 2021, finishing a career of 169 World Cups and World Championships and 75 podium places. On July 13, 2021, she published an autobiography. She finished her climbing career with a bronze medal at the 2020 Summer Olympics. On December 25, 2021, Noguchi and fellow Japanese sport climber Tomoa Narasaki announced their marriage on their respective social media pages.

Rankings

World Cup

World Championships

World Cup podiums

Lead

Bouldering

Rock climbing

Redpointed routes

: :* ''Mind Control'' - Oliana ( SPN) - December 10, 2013 : :* ''Liquid Finger'' - Joyama (

JPN Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

) - December 12, 2008

Boulder problems

: * ''Aguni'' - Mizugaki (

) - November 2014. * ''A Maze of Death'' - Bishop ( CAL) - 2016. * ''Euro Trash'' - Little Cottonwood Canyon ( UT) - May 2022. : * ''Monsterman SD'' - Jyougasaki (

) - February 2010. * ''Evilution Direct'' - Bishop ( CAL) - 2016.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Noguchi, Akiyo 1989 births Living people Japanese rock climbers Asian Games medalists in sport climbing Sport climbers at the 2018 Asian Games Asian Games gold medalists for Japan Medalists at the 2018 Asian Games Competitors at the 2009 World Games Competitors at the 2017 World Games Sport climbers at the 2020 Summer Olympics Olympic sport climbers of Japan Olympic bronze medalists for Japan Olympic medalists in sport climbing Medalists at the 2020 Summer Olympics