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Two gold medals in the Olympics in two separate weight divisions. Six gold medals at the World Weightlifting Championships and three Pan-American gold medals. There are 26 world records and 7 Olympic records. He was crowned Mr. Universe 4 times. Tamio "Tommy" Kono's career as America's finest weightlifter includes all of this and more.
Kono climbed from poor origins to become one of the most successful athletes in American history. Kono was recognized as a very inspiring person in American sports by everyone from his colleagues to major names like Arnold Schwarzenegger. (1)(2) Olympic medalist and Team USA athlete Pete George dubbed Kono "the best weightlifter of all time."
Kono was named "Lifter of the Century" by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) in 2005. (4) What makes these achievements even more amazing is that Kono discovered weightlifting in an internment camp during WWII, rather than an air-conditioned gym.
His larger-than-life narrative would be at home on the big screen, but reality sometimes be more spectacular than fiction.
Many of history's greatest strength athletes are characterised by a single characteristic: determination. Kono, who was born in 1930 in Sacramento to Japanese parents, was a sickly youngster. As11, he suffered from severe asthma and was often absent from school.
He was often too weak to engage in physical education class. Kono was 4'8" and weighed 74 pounds when he was 11 years old.
His health and height would finally improve, but only under difficult conditions. Following the tragedy of the December 1941 Pearl Harbor assault, thousands of Asian-Americans were picked up and incarcerated in camps around the United States. Kono and his family were among the detainees.
Kono was introduced to the barbell in the Tule Lake internment camp in 1942 as part of the prisoners' efforts to cope with the monotony and horror of confinement. (8) Despite his father's worries, Kono started exercising with other boys his age many times each week. Emerick Ishikawa, one of them, would go on to participate for the United States in the 1948 Games.
Kono returned to Sacramento after his family escaped the camp in 1945, where he joined a local club to resume his weightlifting career. While Ishikawa was competing in the London Olympics, Kono finished second in the welterweight class at an American Athletics Union (AAU) weightlifting tournament in 1948. He won the California State Championship the next year. He had beaten four state records by 1950.
Despite his diminutive frame, Kono rapidly earned a reputation for his exceptional levels of strength and started to train at more prestigious institutions.
Bob Hoffman, fitness mogul and owner of York Barbell, was hard at work gathering several of the greatest weightlifters in the United States in 1950. Kono had tested out for the 1950 IWF World Championships at the York gym and seemed to be on track for a full-time sporting career.
However, he was recruited into the Korean War and stationed as a military fitness teacher at Fort Mason in California, missing out on international team selection.
Kono competed in the Helsinki Olympics in 1952, when he won his first Olympic gold medal despite facing stiff competition and suffering from food sickness the night before.
Kono was dismissed from the service the next year, emboldened by his achievement, letting him to devote himself fully to his sport. Kono won gold medals in six straight Weightlifting World Championships in numerous weight categories from 1953 to 1959, setting new World Records in every class he competed in.
Kono's athletic abilities extended beyond weightlifting by winning the Mr. Sacramento bodybuilding competition in 1953, launching a string of victories in physique competitions that culminated in a win at the Fédération Internationale Haltérophile et Culturiste (FIHC) Mr. World contest and its coveted Mr. Universe title in 1954 (lightweight), 1955, 1957, and 1961. (overall).
Kono returned to Olympic lifting after a short absence in 1956 at the Melbourne Olympic Games. Kono won a gold medal and established a new World Record in the Total despite weighing in as a "light-heavyweight," two full categories above his last appearance on the competition platform.
Despite his absence, Kono was still considered as one of the most formidable contenders on the world circuit. Fyodor Bogdanovsky, a Soviet Union athlete who often competed against Kono, described Kono's manner in competition as follows:
"Kono works on me like a serpent on a rabbit when he glances at me from the wings."
Kono commanded the respect of his peers throughout international events. Kono ascribed much of this to his devoted Buddhist philosophy practice and stoic attitude to the mental hardships of sports. To Kono, the mental aspect of weightlifting was as vital as (if not more important than) the physical aspect.
Kono had a setback in the 1959 World Championships in Warsaw, Poland, when he hurt his knee while attempting to set a new World Record in the clean and jerk.
Despite significant rehabilitation and recuperation measures, Kono was defeated by Soviet weightlifter Alexandar Kurinov in the 1960 Olympic Games, his first loss in eight years. According to his own beliefs, Kono had to lose a war at some point.
Kono, on the other hand, would not end his career on a low note. Kono achieved new light heavyweight World Records in both the overhead press and Total in the 1961 Prix de Moscow Tournament. His legendary career was capped with a gold medal performance in the 1963 Pan-American Games. Kono set 26 individual World Records and 7 Olympic Records in total.
After retiring from weightlifting in 1965, Kono committed himself to teaching other athletes, which he had done in his spare time since 1952. (18) Kono's reputation, background, and enthusiasm for the sport suited him well as a teacher, despite the fact that he lacked any certification or an educational degree.
Kono coached the Mexican weightlifting team from 1966 to 1968 while also serving as a writer and columnist to Bob Hoffman's famed Strength & Health magazine.
Despite the fact that Mexico was not considered a weightlifting superpower in the twentieth century, Kono took his role seriously. Notably, during the 1967 Pan-American Games, he was able to train bantamweight lifter Manuel Mateos to a new Junior World Record in the overhead press.
Following his experience in Mexico, Kono broadened his horizons and accepted a post coaching the West German weightlifting team – a job that wasn't as monetarily rewarding, but came with much more status and promise.
West Germany was an underdog on the European circuit at the time, behind the Soviet Union and Bulgaria. During his time in Japan, though, Kono helped propel the country to medal-winning glory.
Kono returned to stateside coaching in 1976, when he joined Team USA for the 1976 Olympic Games. Bruce Wilhelm, one of his most renowned athletes, did not make the podium in Montreal but went on to win the World's Strongest Man competition twice.
Regardless, Lee James' silver-medal achievement in the 1976 Olympics gave Kono one more notch on his coaching belt.
Kono committed himself nearly entirely to becoming a weightlifting instructor, author, and public personality after 1976. He did, however, have one more stint as a competition coach, serving as a women's coach for Team USA in the World Weightlifting Championships from 1987 to 1989.
Women in weightlifting were a relatively young yet rising phenomenon at the time - female weightlifting didn't have its own Olympic event until 2000. Regardless, sports author and journalist John Fair highlighted in a retrospective on Kono that, at a period when women were considered unsuitable for weightlifting, Kono handled his athletes with both respect and fairness.
Kono was also something of a sports entrepreneur. Prior to his retirement, he assisted in the design and development of numerous notable sporting devices, including protective knee protection, in 1964. Kono named his protective kneewear "Bob Hoffman knee bands" in tribute to York's Bob Hoffman, and the product sold over 500,000 copies in 1972.
As a result, Kono contributed to the notion that strength athletes may depend on external equipment to manage injuries, minimize discomfort, and stay safe and healthy when lifting weights.
Furthermore, while coaching for West Germany, Kono collaborated with Adidas to help create a new form of weightlifting shoe. Most lifting shoes — often known as "boots" at the time — were high-topped, with lacing systems that stretched up the shin far beyond the ankle.
Kono observed that this restricted an athlete's ankle mobility, which was critical for keeping an upright posture in exercises like as the clean and front squat. As a result, Kono drew inspiration from the shoes used by Soviet sportsmen and helped design a low-top shoe that was revolutionary at the time.
When Kono returned to the United States in 1970, he took several pairs of his new creation with him, which were rapidly snapped up by ravenous athletes and coaches, according to John Fair. (18) Low-top lifting shoes with greater ankle mobility have now become the standard design for the sport.
Tommy Kono is without a doubt America's finest weightlifter. The debate over the fabled "GOAT" is sometimes heated and never entirely settled, but few competitors alive or dead in any discipline (strength-focused or otherwise) can claim to have lived as full a life as Kono.
Kono transformed his rough and strife-filled life into a narrative of success and compassion, rising from the bowels of jail to the pinnacle of world sports. The fact that he was a razor-sharp and exceptionally powerful weightlifter (as well as a formidable bodybuilder in his own right) further strengthens his argument. It's unusual to see an athlete excel for so long and by such a wide margin in so many weight classes and physical hobbies.
Kono's impact, though, extends well beyond his (admittedly substantial) medal cabinet. Kono affected the lives of thousands of people in the United States and throughout the world as an athlete, entrepreneur, and adviser. The reverence with which he is remembered endures to this day as a monument to his significant influence on weightlifting.
Kono passed away in 2016, but his achievements and reputation will live on as long as there are record books in which to write his narrative.
Kono climbed from poor origins to become one of the most successful athletes in American history. Kono was recognized as a very inspiring person in American sports by everyone from his colleagues to major names like Arnold Schwarzenegger. (1)(2) Olympic medalist and Team USA athlete Pete George dubbed Kono "the best weightlifter of all time."
Kono was named "Lifter of the Century" by the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) in 2005. (4) What makes these achievements even more amazing is that Kono discovered weightlifting in an internment camp during WWII, rather than an air-conditioned gym.
His larger-than-life narrative would be at home on the big screen, but reality sometimes be more spectacular than fiction.
Many of history's greatest strength athletes are characterised by a single characteristic: determination. Kono, who was born in 1930 in Sacramento to Japanese parents, was a sickly youngster. As11, he suffered from severe asthma and was often absent from school.
He was often too weak to engage in physical education class. Kono was 4'8" and weighed 74 pounds when he was 11 years old.
His health and height would finally improve, but only under difficult conditions. Following the tragedy of the December 1941 Pearl Harbor assault, thousands of Asian-Americans were picked up and incarcerated in camps around the United States. Kono and his family were among the detainees.
Kono was introduced to the barbell in the Tule Lake internment camp in 1942 as part of the prisoners' efforts to cope with the monotony and horror of confinement. (8) Despite his father's worries, Kono started exercising with other boys his age many times each week. Emerick Ishikawa, one of them, would go on to participate for the United States in the 1948 Games.
Kono returned to Sacramento after his family escaped the camp in 1945, where he joined a local club to resume his weightlifting career. While Ishikawa was competing in the London Olympics, Kono finished second in the welterweight class at an American Athletics Union (AAU) weightlifting tournament in 1948. He won the California State Championship the next year. He had beaten four state records by 1950.
Despite his diminutive frame, Kono rapidly earned a reputation for his exceptional levels of strength and started to train at more prestigious institutions.
Bob Hoffman, fitness mogul and owner of York Barbell, was hard at work gathering several of the greatest weightlifters in the United States in 1950. Kono had tested out for the 1950 IWF World Championships at the York gym and seemed to be on track for a full-time sporting career.
However, he was recruited into the Korean War and stationed as a military fitness teacher at Fort Mason in California, missing out on international team selection.
Kono competed in the Helsinki Olympics in 1952, when he won his first Olympic gold medal despite facing stiff competition and suffering from food sickness the night before.
Kono was dismissed from the service the next year, emboldened by his achievement, letting him to devote himself fully to his sport. Kono won gold medals in six straight Weightlifting World Championships in numerous weight categories from 1953 to 1959, setting new World Records in every class he competed in.
Kono's athletic abilities extended beyond weightlifting by winning the Mr. Sacramento bodybuilding competition in 1953, launching a string of victories in physique competitions that culminated in a win at the Fédération Internationale Haltérophile et Culturiste (FIHC) Mr. World contest and its coveted Mr. Universe title in 1954 (lightweight), 1955, 1957, and 1961. (overall).
Kono returned to Olympic lifting after a short absence in 1956 at the Melbourne Olympic Games. Kono won a gold medal and established a new World Record in the Total despite weighing in as a "light-heavyweight," two full categories above his last appearance on the competition platform.
Despite his absence, Kono was still considered as one of the most formidable contenders on the world circuit. Fyodor Bogdanovsky, a Soviet Union athlete who often competed against Kono, described Kono's manner in competition as follows:
"Kono works on me like a serpent on a rabbit when he glances at me from the wings."
Kono commanded the respect of his peers throughout international events. Kono ascribed much of this to his devoted Buddhist philosophy practice and stoic attitude to the mental hardships of sports. To Kono, the mental aspect of weightlifting was as vital as (if not more important than) the physical aspect.
Kono had a setback in the 1959 World Championships in Warsaw, Poland, when he hurt his knee while attempting to set a new World Record in the clean and jerk.
Despite significant rehabilitation and recuperation measures, Kono was defeated by Soviet weightlifter Alexandar Kurinov in the 1960 Olympic Games, his first loss in eight years. According to his own beliefs, Kono had to lose a war at some point.
Kono, on the other hand, would not end his career on a low note. Kono achieved new light heavyweight World Records in both the overhead press and Total in the 1961 Prix de Moscow Tournament. His legendary career was capped with a gold medal performance in the 1963 Pan-American Games. Kono set 26 individual World Records and 7 Olympic Records in total.
After retiring from weightlifting in 1965, Kono committed himself to teaching other athletes, which he had done in his spare time since 1952. (18) Kono's reputation, background, and enthusiasm for the sport suited him well as a teacher, despite the fact that he lacked any certification or an educational degree.
Kono coached the Mexican weightlifting team from 1966 to 1968 while also serving as a writer and columnist to Bob Hoffman's famed Strength & Health magazine.
Despite the fact that Mexico was not considered a weightlifting superpower in the twentieth century, Kono took his role seriously. Notably, during the 1967 Pan-American Games, he was able to train bantamweight lifter Manuel Mateos to a new Junior World Record in the overhead press.
Following his experience in Mexico, Kono broadened his horizons and accepted a post coaching the West German weightlifting team – a job that wasn't as monetarily rewarding, but came with much more status and promise.
West Germany was an underdog on the European circuit at the time, behind the Soviet Union and Bulgaria. During his time in Japan, though, Kono helped propel the country to medal-winning glory.
Kono returned to stateside coaching in 1976, when he joined Team USA for the 1976 Olympic Games. Bruce Wilhelm, one of his most renowned athletes, did not make the podium in Montreal but went on to win the World's Strongest Man competition twice.
Regardless, Lee James' silver-medal achievement in the 1976 Olympics gave Kono one more notch on his coaching belt.
Kono committed himself nearly entirely to becoming a weightlifting instructor, author, and public personality after 1976. He did, however, have one more stint as a competition coach, serving as a women's coach for Team USA in the World Weightlifting Championships from 1987 to 1989.
Women in weightlifting were a relatively young yet rising phenomenon at the time - female weightlifting didn't have its own Olympic event until 2000. Regardless, sports author and journalist John Fair highlighted in a retrospective on Kono that, at a period when women were considered unsuitable for weightlifting, Kono handled his athletes with both respect and fairness.
Kono was also something of a sports entrepreneur. Prior to his retirement, he assisted in the design and development of numerous notable sporting devices, including protective knee protection, in 1964. Kono named his protective kneewear "Bob Hoffman knee bands" in tribute to York's Bob Hoffman, and the product sold over 500,000 copies in 1972.
As a result, Kono contributed to the notion that strength athletes may depend on external equipment to manage injuries, minimize discomfort, and stay safe and healthy when lifting weights.
Furthermore, while coaching for West Germany, Kono collaborated with Adidas to help create a new form of weightlifting shoe. Most lifting shoes — often known as "boots" at the time — were high-topped, with lacing systems that stretched up the shin far beyond the ankle.
Kono observed that this restricted an athlete's ankle mobility, which was critical for keeping an upright posture in exercises like as the clean and front squat. As a result, Kono drew inspiration from the shoes used by Soviet sportsmen and helped design a low-top shoe that was revolutionary at the time.
When Kono returned to the United States in 1970, he took several pairs of his new creation with him, which were rapidly snapped up by ravenous athletes and coaches, according to John Fair. (18) Low-top lifting shoes with greater ankle mobility have now become the standard design for the sport.
Tommy Kono is without a doubt America's finest weightlifter. The debate over the fabled "GOAT" is sometimes heated and never entirely settled, but few competitors alive or dead in any discipline (strength-focused or otherwise) can claim to have lived as full a life as Kono.
Kono transformed his rough and strife-filled life into a narrative of success and compassion, rising from the bowels of jail to the pinnacle of world sports. The fact that he was a razor-sharp and exceptionally powerful weightlifter (as well as a formidable bodybuilder in his own right) further strengthens his argument. It's unusual to see an athlete excel for so long and by such a wide margin in so many weight classes and physical hobbies.
Kono's impact, though, extends well beyond his (admittedly substantial) medal cabinet. Kono affected the lives of thousands of people in the United States and throughout the world as an athlete, entrepreneur, and adviser. The reverence with which he is remembered endures to this day as a monument to his significant influence on weightlifting.
Kono passed away in 2016, but his achievements and reputation will live on as long as there are record books in which to write his narrative.
