13 Medal-Worthy Olympic Stories
by Ethan Trex
August 14, 2008
1. The Weightlifter Who Beefed Up at a Japanese Internment Camp
A scrawny, asthmatic child, Tamio Kono developed his weightlifting physique in the most unlikely place—a Japanese internment camp. During World War II, he and his family were forced from their home in San Francisco and moved to a detention center in the California desert. For three and a half years, they endured brutal conditions along with other Japanese immigrants. Although the situation was terrible, the climate wasn’t. The desert air agreed with Tamio’s lungs, and he started lifting weights to pass the time.
After the war, Kono kept training, and within a decade, he was the lynchpin of the U.S. national weightlifting team. Despite his family’s detention, he proudly lifted for the Americans. Using his freakish ability to raise and lower his weight quickly, Kono helped the team fill gaps in its roster. During his career, Kono lifted competitively at weights ranging from 149 lbs. to 198 lbs. To bulk up, he’d devour six or seven meals a day, and to slim down, he’d “starve” himself with three meals a day. He won his first gold as a lightweight during his Olympic debut in 1952, his second as a light heavyweight in 1956, and then a silver as a middleweight in 1960. All in all, he set seven Olympic records and 26 world records. Plus, he went on to become Mister Universe three times. Not bad for a boy who’d once been a 105-lb. weakling.
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