Tetsuo Hamuro

Tetsuo Hamuro (1917 to 2005) was a Japanese breaststroke swimmer who won the men's 200 metre breaststroke at the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. He had set a world record over 200 metres the year before, and in Berlin he took the gold medal with a new Olympic record of 2:41.5. He swam the traditional breaststroke at a time when some rivals used the butterfly stroke, which the rules of the day still allowed. From 1935 to 1940 he never lost a race and collected national breaststroke titles. After the Second World War he worked as a sports journalist for the Mainichi newspaper. In 1990 he was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame, and his wife was also a swimmer and a world champion in the masters category.