That what you wrote there is not true.
I can call out any ATH... there being a breather after it or not. An ATH (at its time) doesn't depend on what comes after it. It's just the highest price ever reached. And you can call it at that moment every single time!
(or maybe I don't get what you wanted to say)
As long as the price is climbing, you can't really pin an ATH, because it's continuing to climb the other moment. There needs to be a lower price after a higher price that you can identify the higher price as an ATH (aka. the most recent highest price), otherwise the temporary ATH is invalidated at the blink of an eye by another temporary ATH, but we're speaking definite ATH. Price has to retrace to fix the ATH.
Seems logical to me, at least.
Or just scroll-zoom through the shorter-timeframe charts, where you can see it if you don't believe it.
Feel free to post an example of an ATH which was immediately followed by a higher price

It's plain simple: Buys are triggering sells (and vice versa). You already knew that, didn't you?