He will be the only Japanese athlete to compete in the world's toughest mountain race
Yuji Emoto enrolled in the world's most difficult French ski mountaineering school (ENSA) and obtained both a ski instructor qualification and a national mountain guide qualification. He is the only Japanese person to hold both qualifications and is active both domestically and internationally. He has appeared in ski publications such as FallLine and BRAVOSKI and has been paragliding for nine years. He has now decided to participate in the long-awaited "X-Alps."
"X-Alps" is said to be the world's toughest mountain race, crossing the European Alps over 10 days, covering a distance of approximately 1,800 km by foot and paraglider. It is an extremely tough race, with a completion rate of just 6%, and it is not uncommon for only two participants to remain. Emoto, 46 years old, is the only Japanese participant allowed to participate, but he is clearly far behind the world's top athletes in terms of both physical strength and paragliding experience. It is precisely because of this environment that he will be making full use of his experience in climbing, paragliding, and trail running in order to complete the race
He will be starting his crowdfunding campaign today, March 8th (Wednesday) at 6:00 PM. Due to the weak yen and rising prices, the cost of travel and accompanying assistants, as well as the cost of equipment to last the two weeks, have skyrocketed in order to participate in this race. It is becoming increasingly difficult to be in top condition to compete. Furthermore, there are overwhelming differences in the amount of time available to inspect the race with top athletes, the variety of facilities available, and the number of companies with which the racers have contracts
So this time, he decided to raise the participation fee through crowdfunding. Emoto will be the only person from Japan to participate in this race, but through this crowdfunding he will form Team Japan Emoto and plan to take on the competition as a united team
As a reward for the crowdfunding, a lunch debriefing will be held after he returns to Japan. This will be a rare opportunity to hear directly from him his comments immediately after taking part in this extremely grueling race
Become a part of Team Japan Emoto and support his challenge
■Information
Emoto Yuji
As an alpine skier, he studied abroad in France alone at the age of 16, and after his career as an athlete, he enrolled in ENSA (French National Ski Mountaineering School) and obtained both mountain guide and ski instructor qualifications. In 2018, he opened Guesthouse Zutton Hakuba in his beloved Hakuba (Happo)
[Qualifications] UIAGM International Mountain Guide, French National Qualification Mountain Guide, French National Qualification Ski Instructor