Yoshiyuki Tsuruta

Yoshiyuki Tsuruta was a Japanese breaststroke swimmer, born on 1 October 1903 in Ishiki Village near Kagoshima and died on 24 July 1986. He worked for the Japanese Government Railways before joining the Imperial Japanese Navy, and won the 200 metre breaststroke at the 1925 Meiji Shrine Games. At the 1928 Amsterdam Olympics he won the 200 metre breaststroke in a world record 2:48.8, becoming the second Japanese Olympic gold medallist after the triple jumper Mikio Oda. After studying law at Meiji University he lowered the world record again in 1929, then defeated his teammate Reizo Koike at Los Angeles in 1932 to become the first Japanese athlete to win gold at two consecutive Olympic Games. Later he worked in sports administration in Nagoya and Ehime, was honoured by the Japanese government, and was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1968.