Channel News Asia: Japanese swimming legend Furuhashi dies
Japanese swimming hero Hironoshin Furuhashi was found dead of natural causes in his hotel room here during the swimming World Championships, the Japanese Swimming Federation said on Sunday. Furuhashi, 80, was attending the championships in his capacity as honorary president of the Japanese Swimming Federation as well as vice president of world swimming's governing body FINA...Furuhashi was the the most successful athlete ever to reach the second-highest position in the FINA Bureau. He took up his place in 1968 after having enjoyed a stellar career as a swimmer...Despite poor nutrition and lack of competition during Japan's post-war period, Furuhashi broke the then-world record in the 400 metres freestyle at a domestic competition in 1947. His time was not ratified as a world record because Japan was excluded from the International Aquatics Federation (FINA)...Furuhashi again notched world-best times in Los Angeles in 1949, where a Japanese delegation competed at the US championships by invitation but found themselves facing a tense anti-Japanese atmosphere. "The atmosphere there was bad ... and people there called us the 'Jap'," a derogatory term for the Japanese, Furuhashi wrote on the Japanese Olympic Committee's website, recalling the event. But Furuhashi said that US fans were won over by their strong performances. "After we made world records in the competition, Americans soon apologised to us ... and gave me the pet name, the 'flying fish of Fujiyama (Mount Fuji -- Japan's iconic and highest mountain),'" he said. "I was moved by Americans' frankness and large hearts," he added of the experience...more...
