Olympian was worth his weight in gold
Tommy Kono
Olympic weightlifter
BORN JUNE 27, 1930 – DIED APRIL 24, 2016, AGED 85
DESCRIBED as the greatest weightlifter in US history Tommy Kono won Olympic gold at the 1952 Games in Helsinki and again in Melbourne four years later.
He also took home six consecutive world championship titles from 1953 to 1959 and set 26 records in four different weight classes: lightweight, middleweight, light- heavyweight and middle- heavyweight.
He was inducted into the US Olympic Hall of Fame in 1990 and the International Weightlifting Hall of Fame in 1993.
Tamio Kono was born in Sacramento, California but at the age of 12 he and his family, who were of Japanese descent, were forcibly moved to Tule Lake internment camp as part of a mass relocation that saw more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans interned.
It was here that Kono, who suffered from severe asthma, saw his condition improve thanks to the dry desert air and where he was first introduced to weightlifting by a neighbour. As he later recalled: “I didn’t want to be a weightlifter. I just wanted to be healthy.”
The family moved back to Sacramento after three years and following his studies Kono was drafted into the US Army in 1951 but was kept home during the Korean War after officials learned of his Olympic potential.
“You could say that weightlifting may have saved my life because instead of getting shipped to Korea I had a bigger assignment that was to represent the United States at the Olympics in Helsinki and that was a great opportunity for me,” he said.
In addition to his weightlifting career Kono excelled in the art of bodybuilding, winning the title of Mr World in 1954 and Mr Universe in 1955, 1957 and 1961. He also proved to be the inspiration for future bodybuilding champion and later movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger, who saw him take part in Mr Universe in Vienna in 1961.
In 2005 Kono revealed: “He told me he was a 13- year- old boy in the audience that day and was so inspired he ran home and started working out.”
In 1964 Kono was forced to retire because of a constant knee injury and went on to coach the Olympic lifting teams for three different countries: Mexico in 1968, West Germany in 1972 and the United States in 1976.
He also developed the joint bands that competitive international weightlifters wear on their knees and elbows and wrote two books on the sport.
He died following complications from liver disease and is survived by his wife Florence and three children.