Masanori Yusa

Masanori Yusa was a Japanese freestyle swimmer, born on 8 January 1915 in Tadotsu, Kagawa, who won three Olympic medals for Japan in the 1930s. He swam on the winning 4 x 200 metre freestyle relay teams at both the 1932 and 1936 Summer Olympics, setting a world record each time, and at Berlin in 1936 he also took silver in the 100 metre freestyle after a finish so close with his team mates Shigeo Arai and Masaharu Taguchi that the finish photo suggests Taguchi may actually have been second. At home he won the 100 and 200 metre freestyle in 1933 and 1934 and the 100 metres again in 1936. A graduate of Nihon University, he worked for the Yokohama Rubber Company, married the actress Yumeko Aizome in 1942 and later served as a technical instructor with the Japanese Swimming Federation. He died in Tokyo on 8 March 1975.