Caroline Civaldini – Meeting my hero (Yuji Hirayama) at 15

I grew up on a small Island that was part of France, even if it was in the southern hemisphere. Even there, climbing was a school sport, and even there, we received the climbing magazines : Rock & Wall and Grimper. From them, I got to read about the climbing stars, competition climbers such as François Legrand, Liv Sansoz and Yuji Hirayama…

When I was 15, I was invited to watch a world cup event that was happening in Nantes, France. I took a 12 hour flight and had a little camera to record everything I would see. I remember the lights, the sound, the speaker, and all the spectators silently watching, the gigantic hall completely dark with just one spotlight focusing on the climber. It came down to Alex Chabot and Yuji Hirayama in this superb final, Alex climbed well, but Yuji and his cat like climbing, went way higher. Yuji won, in front of a huge crowd, and I can still remember the atmosphere. I felt like it was me winning.

I flew back to my island the day after and I remember taking my notebook on the plane… I had 12 hours to think. I wrote down: “I’ve made my decision: I will be a comp climber. I will be part of that shining word.”
I left the island aged 16 and started to train hard…

To say that Yuji was my personal hero from that day on is obvious. But then I got to meet him, climb a lot with him. You know the sentence “Never meet your hero“. Well I did meet mine, and he is still, more than ever, my hero.