Strength & Health, Page 14, May 1964

Real Life Story of

Tommy Kono

"We are very pleased to hear that Tommy Kono will be featured in Strength and Health magazine. He is an outstanding person as well as a fine athlete and he is a great privilege to know." A. A. Smyser, Managing Editor, Honolulu Star Bulletin, Honolulu, Hawaii.

TOMMY Tamio Kono is a young man who knows what he wants, where he is going and how he plans to get there.

He is a champion's champion. He is a sportsman's sportsman.

There are persons who claim that if the famed Hawaiian athlete were a great performer in track and field or in swimming, he probably would have been the Sullivan Award winner at least three times.

Tommy Kono is a welghtlifter. He is a weightlifter's weightlifter.

Over the past three years, Kono, a laboratory technician to Honolulu's renowned Dr. Richard W. You, was runner-up in the Sullivan Award balloting. In 1963, he amassed 931 votes including the first place votes of 140 sports writers and coaches. The Sullivan Award winner, John Pennel, pole-vaulter, collected 1,115 points with 165 first place ballots, which are worth five points each. Second place votes are worth three, and third place, one.

In previous Sullivan Award voting, the popular Kono was fifth in 1960, second in 1959, third in 1958, fourth in 1957 and sixth in 1956. He has at least wrestled the title of "bridesmaid, but never the bride."

Of the eight times Kono was nominated for the award, he placed second four times and once for third, fourth and fifth place. He was the nominee of the Hawaiian Association A.A.U. candidate from Hawaii on every occasion.

Kono is 33 years old. Yet he is still a strong contender for his fourth straight Olympic Games trip, and probably would be the oldest contestant representing the United States.

In his first try, the ageless athlete walked off with a Gold Medal in the lightweight class (148 pounds) at Helsinki, Finland. His lift of 798.75 pounds was good enough to make him an Olympic Champion in 1952.

Then in 1956, he did it all over again, only this time in the lightheavyweight class (181 pounds). He lifted 986.25 pounds. In 1960, he picked off a Silver Medal for his 942 pound lift in the middleweight class (165-pound class).

Three Olympics, two Gold Medals and one Silver Medal in three weight classes is an enviable record. He also broke world records in four different weight classes.

He was world champion in the middleweight class in 1953, 1957, 1958, and 1959, and in the light-heavyweight class in 1954 and 1955. In all, Kono has officially established seven Olympic, 37 American, eight Pan American and 26 World records.

Other nations recognize his greatness too.

He has traveled more than a half million miles by air to represent the United States in competition, and to present exhibitions in 25 countries. He made two around-the-world Goodwill tours. Among his 18 trips to Europe for competitions, eight times were behind the Iron Curtain.

In 1963, he racked up his third Pan-American Games title and his 11th National Championship.

In Honolulu, he's a favorite of its citizenry.

In 1959, during National Olympic Week in Hawaii, the state's House of Representatives proffered its highest commendation, praise and thanks to Kono for "his great achievements and contributions to the State of Hawaii."

His record of 13 victories over Russian lifters in three weight classes has made him a respected athlete in the Soviet Union. He's been to Moscow five times for meets.

Kono has won the "Outstanding Lifters" award at seven Senior Nationals.

Besides traveling abroad as a representative of the United States, he enjoys his work as a volunteer instructor at the Nuuanu Branch, Y.M.C.A., an assignment he has had for the past eight years. Prior to that he had a similar post with the Sacramento Y.M.C.A.

"I have my eyes set for the Tokyo Olympics. I intend to make it my last stand. I am curbing my lifting exhibitions and contests this year so I can put my supreme effort behind the Games. I have been overtrained in the past, simply because it was one contest or exhibition after another. I barely squeezed through the 1963 Nationals, but it left me nothing for the World Meet at Stockholm. I was overtrained and fizzled out completely in Sweden," Kono said in sizing up his pre-Olympic plans.

Kono enjoys traveling. He is sometimes confused with the press corps because he carries a camera.

"I like to think of myself as an amateur photographer. Some of my work from behind the Iron Curtain has appeared on front pages of Honolulu newspapers. Every time I accompany Olympic Coach Bob Hoffman to a foreign country, I end up taking photos for Strength and Health," he said. He's an avid music fan (he says good music) and enjoys working crossword puzzles and word problems.

His goal in weightlifting reflects the unselfish spirit of the athlete.

"One of my goals in weightlifting is to find someone whom I can pass on all the knowledge I have acquired in the game and reduce the time it would take him to reach the top by a number of years," he said.

On the side, Kono is also a member of the Hawaii Governor's Physical Fitness Committee. He is in constant demand ;for public appearances and speaking engagements.

Besides all that, the lifter is an official of several A.A.U. Committees in Hawaii, including the women's track and field and long distance running committees. He is a director of the Hawaii Athletic and Physical Culture Association.

Kono's leadership ability never has been challenged. He's captained just about every U.S. team to travel abroad.

He never lacks courage.

In 1959, Hawaiian sports editor Andrew Mitsukado wrote of the pain Kono suffered from knee ailments. He noted the ailments cost Tommy the Olympic title in 1960 and a later world championship.

Mitsukado quoted Dr. You, Hawaii's leader in weightlifting and Kono's employer: "Tommy suffers considerable pain at times. The knees swell up from time to time and it is necessary to draw fluid from them. But he never complains. Kono is one of the most courageous men I have ever seen." He suffers from osteo-arthritis in his right knee.

You, who is also a vice-chairman of the National A.A.U. Weightlifting Committee, described Kono's public appearances abroad this way: "His deportment and appearance is excellent both on and off the lifting platform. His appearance and behavior in foreign countries always reflect favorably as a representative and citizen of the United States."

Kono is a friend of kings and government officials around the world.

Not many years ago, when the Shah of Iran visited Honolulu he announced he wanted to talk to the Hawaiian weightlifter. The Shah of Iran, who earlier hosted Kono, Coach Hoffman and other lifters during a U.S. team tour of his country, is a weightlifting fan and does some lifting.

Kono spent 1½ hours in the company of the Shah of Iran, and they covered all aspects of the sport.

The Sullivan Award runner-up recently joined several other athletes in a television campaign to discourage youngsters from smoking cigarettes.

Russian weightlifters look upon Kono as an expert on the sport. He was asked by the Russians to submit an article on weightlifting, which was published in the May, 1961, issue of the Soviet Union's "Fizkultura i Sport." He wrote then that he was tempted to give up competitive lifting after his disappointing showing in Rome.

"Disappointments will come, but that is no excuse to quit the sport. That is my first advice, not only to the youth, but to athletes of all ages." He is not a quitter.

Kono, whose smile brightens any area in which he happens to be, was not always a strong individual. At age 14, he was an asthmatic, 105-pound weakling. Since then he rebuilt that body with such scientific determination that he was named "Mr. World" in 1954 and "Mr. Universe" in 1955 and 1957.

His muscles usually are hid under his loosely worn Hawaiian style sport shirts. He stands five-feet, six-inches tall. He presents a shy appearance.

Coronet Magazine writer, A. Grove Day, in a feature article in July of 1960, wrote that Kono's horn-rimmed glasses and shy manner make him look like "a library-oriented graduate student." He said further "But looks are deceiving. To the Russians, Kono is a marked man. Until the Red Samsons can defeat him, the Communist claim that the U.S.S.R. is the world's strongest nation will be open to question."

Tommy's personal life was subject to abuses early in life.

His parents lived near Sacramento, California, and tried to support four sons. Tommy missed a great deal of schooling because of asthma. He was given all kinds of medicine, but nothing really helped. Because of his Japanese ancestry, he and his parents were moved to a West Coast Japanese-American relocation center at Tule Lake during World War II. Ironically, the desert air relieved the asthma. While at the center, he was introduced to weightlifting.

After the war, the Konos moved back to Sacramento, where Tommy attended a junior college.

It was in 1948 at San Jose, California, that he competed in his first weightlifting tournament. He was second in the lightweight class. The Kono career in weightlifting was underway.

It was while Kono was serving in the U.S. Army that he was granted permission to enter the Senior Nationals in New York City in 1952. He bagged his first national record, a 253 in the snatch. He also went away with the national title. He had become king of the lightweights.

Since then, it has been victories, disappointments, more victories. And he will have some more of each before going into retirement, probably this year end.

PHOTO CAPTIONS

- Once an asthmatic weakling, Kono became "Mr. World" in 1954 and "Mr. Universe" in 1955 and 1957. He overcame this condition after moving to a desert.

- The Hawaiian star, in clean and jerk is shown as he scored a major upset over highly favored Rudolph Plukfelder, of Russia, in 1961 "Prize of Moscow" contest in Soviet Union. Kono was disappointing at Rome Games in 1960.

- The 33-year-old lifter has captained most of the U.S. weightlifting teams on trips to the Olympics, Pan-American and World Games. Kono is flag bearer of American team at Pan-American Games in Brzil last summer.

- Friends check scale after Kono broke world's record in press with 295-pound lift in Hawaii on August 3, 1956. Left to right are: Tom Collozo, Don Potter, Dr. Richard You, Al Brock, Kono, Tad Fuji, Richard Tomita and Tommy Kowalaski.

- Kono calls photography his vaforite hobby, next to weightlifitng. He has recorded on film the places and people of many foreign countries while representing the U.S.A. His results have appeared in S&H and newspapers.

- Kono poses with another all-time Hawaiian great, Duke Kahanamoku, two-time U.S. Olympic swimming star (Gold Medal winner in 1912 and 1920.) They are Hawaii's most famous athletes.

- Kono adjusts plates for teammate, Dick Zirk, during warm-up practice for meet in Great Britain several years ago. He proves to be good buddy for lifters on first trip abroad.

- In one of the most dramatic lifting photos of all times, Kono is shown in the clean and jerk with a 365-pound lift. Hawaiian photographer Bob Kistler caught this briliant action on film.

- Between Kono, right, and Dr. Peter George, they have won a total of 14 world championships. They discuss the future of the sport in United States prior to exhibtion at University of Hawaii.

- Kono is a celebrity at home and abroad. Everywhere he goes, fans ask him for his autograph.

- Two great champs, Kono, right, and Japan's great lifter, Kenji Onuma, match notes after a meet in Japan several years ago.

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