As the U.S.-Japanese swimming meets continued in Japan last week, coaches from Melbourne to New Haven stared in admiration at the record of a broad-shouldered, sturdy-legged Japanese college student named Tsuyoshi Yamanaka. Not only did Yamanaka break one world's record and help break a second, but he performed brilliantly in every freestyle event from the thrashing 100 meters to the grueling 1,500 meters. Marveled Yale's Bob Kiphuth. grand old man of U.S. swimming: "Fantastic!"
The 20-year-old Yamanaka comes by his swimming talent naturally: his mother was a professional diver for shellfish. Yamanaka, raised in Amamachi, on the Sea of Japan, was a swimmer at four. But as a boy, Yamanaka shuddered at the thought of racing: "It seemed too tiring at the time." Then one day he tagged along to watch his high school team in a national meet, sat fuming as the contestants splashed haplessly up and down the pool. Finally, Yamanaka stalked down out of the stands, entered the 100 meters—and won. "After watching the slow swimming," says he, "I felt I just had to get in there."
Cutting the Roll. Once in the swim, Yamanaka set out to compete in earnest. By the 1956 Olympic Games, he was a 17-year-old novice who rolled like a canoe in white water, because his left arm curved too far under his body. But he still had enough raw power to place second in the 400 meters (4:30.4) and second in the 1,500 meters (18:00.3).
Not since the 19305. when Japan was the world's top swimming power, had Japanese coaches seen such a likely prospect. They corrected his body roll and built him into an iron-hard (5 ft. 6½ in., 150 lbs.) competitor.
Worlds to Conquer. At his two big meets against the U.S.. Yamanaka warmed up by coming within .1 sec. of matching Aussie John Konrads' world record (2:02.2) for the 200 meters. A bare two hours later, he tackled the marathon distance of 1,500 meters, set a Japanese record of 17:47.5 ("I struggled along trying to overcome weariness by thinking of the food I love"). Next, thrashing home on the last lap with furious half-strokes ("They give me speed but they really wind me"), Yamanaka lopped 2.4 sec. off Konrads' mark (4:19) for the 400 meters. Still full of swimming, he swam on the relay team that broke the 800 meters record of 8:21.6 by 2.9 sec., and finally, last week, Yamanaka capped his performance by tying the Japanese record of 56.4 sec. for the 100 meters.
A junior at Tokyo's Waseda University, Yamanaka still has worlds to conquer before settling down to a career as a teacher. Australia's great Murray Rose, 20, swam as a guest in the Japanese meets, beat Yamanaka three times and lost to him twice. And, at 17, Konrads still holds the bulk of the freestyle records, talks confidently of regaining the one that Yamanaka won away: "Next year I think I'll crack two minutes for the 200 meters, and I'll be aiming at 4:12 for the 400 meters." But the sudden emergence of Yamanaka gives swimming a triumvirate that can smash records in every freestyle event from the 200 meters up. In the 1960 Olympics at Rome, says Yale's Kiphuth happily, "the fur will fly."