Noncritical maps on geodesically complete spaces with curvature bounded above

Abstract We define and study the regularity of distance maps on geodesically complete spaces with curvature bounded above. We prove that such a regular map is locally a Hurewicz fibration. This regularity can be regarded as a dual concept of Perelman’s regularity in the geometry of Alexandrov spaces with curvature bounded below. As a corollary, we obtain a sphere theorem for geodesically complete CAT(1) spaces.