Dai Koyamada is a Japanese rock climber and known as one of the premier boulderers of his generation. He has also put up or repeated hard sport climbs. Dai was born on 23 August 1976 in Kagoshima and has been climbing since 1993. Despite his shorter stature at 165 cm and 58 kg Dai has excelled at a wide style of rock climbing at the highest level of difficulty. In 1996, Koyamada won the Japanese National Championship. This is the event which allowed him to become a professional rock climber. Four years later in 2000 Koyamada left the competitions, because he realized "The real nature of my climbing resides in crags". Dai made a name for himself on the rock early on by completing the first ascent of Logical Progression on 2001 November 27 in Joyama, Japan. At the time this was considered one of the most difficult sport climbs in the world. Koyamada was made world famous in 2004, when he journeyed to Australia and repeated every problem at the Hollow Mountain Cave in the Grampians, problems put up by Fred Nicole and Klem Loskot and some of Australia's top boulderers. He then proceeded to link-up the problems in the HMC for the first ascent of The Wheel of Life on 2004 May 12. This climb has stood the test of time and remains a world class test piece for top level climbers. The level of V16 has been downgraded over the years. The second ascent of The Wheel of Life was by Chris Webb Parsons on 13 Oct 2007. Later in 2004 Koyamada traveled to Switzerland and repeated Dreamtime on November 09. At the time Dreamtime was considered one of the hardest boulder problems in the world and is the first problem to ever receive a V15/8C grade. It has since broken and downgraded. On October15, 2005 Koyamada repeated Action Directe in the Frankenjura, Germany and proclaimed it harder than any other route that he has climbed. Dai continues to push the limits of hard rock climbing. On April 4, 2017 at the age of 40 Koyamada climbed a new personal limit with the first ascent of Nayuta 8C+ in Gero, Japan.
Notable Ascents
Koyamada has possibly the longest tick list of difficult boulder problem ascents and hard boulder first ascents in the world. The only climber that compares is Daniel Woods and Jimmy Webb
* The Story of Two Worlds low start – Cresciano – 22 March 2012 – Following an internet controversy contesting Koyamada's hand positions to start the boulder problem in 2010, Koyamada returned to honor his name and establish his own, more difficult low start.
* Epitaph – Hourai – 20 January 2009 – This first ascent took him over a year to complete, and he says it's the most beautiful line he has ever made the first ascent on.
