Hello ladies and gents this is the Viking telling you that today we are talking about
Tamio "Tommy" Kono's 91st Birthday
Today’s Doodle, illustrated by Los Angeles-based guest artist Shanti Rittgers, celebrates Japanese-American coach, Olympic gold-medalist athlete, and world-champion bodybuilder Tommy Kono, who is regarded as one of the greatest weightlifters in United States history.
Tamio “Tommy” Kono was born in Sacramento, California, on this day in 1930. During the onset of World War II, Kono and his family, all of Japanese descent, were among the over 120,000 Japanese-Americans forced by the U.S. government to be detained in prison camps (aka Japanese internment camps). It was in one of these camps that Kono was introduced to weightlifting—which he practiced relentlessly in an effort to become healthier after experiencing severe asthma throughout his childhood.
When the fog of war lifted, Kono returned home to Sacramento, where he entered his first weightlifting competitions. By 1952, he was an invaluable member of the U.S. national weightlifting team, in part due to his rare ability to move between weight classes without losing his strength. Kono won his first Olympic gold medal in the lightweight division that same year at the Helsinki Summer Games. This began a winning streak that crescendoed at the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games when he won the light-heavyweight competition—his final Olympic gold medal.
After his 1964 retirement from a career gilded by 26 world records, along with dozens of championship titles in weightlifting and several in bodybuilding, Kono shared his seasoned expertise throughout the 70s as an Olympic coach. In 1993, Kono was inducted into the Weightlifting Hall of Fame, and to this day, Kono remains the only weightlifter in history to hold world records in four different weight classes.
Happy birthday, Tommy Kono, and thank you for using your strength to lift not just weights, but those around you and as always have a chilled day from the Viking
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