Tetsuo Okamoto

Tetsuo Okamoto (1932 to 2007) was a Brazilian distance freestyle swimmer from Marília in the state of São Paulo, and the first Brazilian swimmer to win an Olympic medal. He took up swimming as a boy to treat asthma and, after a Japanese touring team showed him how much harder the best swimmers trained, he raised his workload to about ten thousand metres a day. He won his first Brazilian championship in 1950, took gold in the 400 metre and 1500 metre freestyle at the first Pan American Games in 1951 in Buenos Aires, and swept the 400, 800 and 1500 metre freestyle at the 1952 South American Championship in Lima. At the 1952 Summer Olympics in Helsinki he won bronze in the 1500 metre freestyle in a South American record of 18:51.3 that stood for ten years. After retiring from competition he lived for some years in the United States, studied geology and business administration and ran an artesian well drilling company, then returned to Marília, where he died in 2007.