A member of the dominant Japanese swimming team, Tetsuo Hamuro had come to prominence by equalling the 200 metre breaststroke world record in 1935. He won the only international championship he competed in, the 1936 Olympics. Notably, Hamuro was using the traditional breaststroke technique, while some of the other finalists were using the later outlawed butterfly.
Hamuro won a total of eight titles in breaststroke events (six at 200 m and two at 100 m) at the Japanese Championships between 1935 and his retirement in 1940, at which time he was still ranked the world’s #1 breaststroke swimmer. After the war, Hamuro worked for the Japanese newspaper Mainichi as a sports journalist. He was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1990. Before he died of an abdominal aneurysm at the age of 88, he was the last surviving Japanese pre-WWII Olympic gold medalist. Hamuro was appointed as an honorary citizen of Takaishi City.
Japan