Fifty years ago, on May 16, 1975, Japanese climber Junko Tabei became the first woman to reach the summit of Mount Everest. She achieved this feat just twelve days after surviving an avalanche at 6,300 meters, while she was asleep. Although her achievement was celebrated mainly in Asia, her story remains one of the most inspiring in the history of sport. In a time when adventurous ambitions were considered inappropriate for women, Tabei defied Japanese social norms and cultural expectations. She adopted leadership methods often associated with masculine or Western expedition structures to organise all-women high-altitude climbing teams.