Olympian Kawamoto-Konno endeavored to win for family honor

On occasions when she would swim with her grandchildren, Evelyn Tokue Kawamoto-Konno exhibited such smooth, powerful strokes that she seemed to glide through the water, “almost like a fish,” a daughter remembers with enduring wonder.

Because of her steadfast humility they were among the few times that the family and others were reminded that she had been a double bronze medalist in the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki.

Not one to tout her accomplishments or flout her medals, “She would never tell anyone herself,” said Bonnie Shishido, a daughter. “We’d have to tell them.”

Kawamoto-Konno, who died Jan. 22 at age 83, had been one of the few remaining figures from a remarkable era when Hawaii swimmers were among the best in the world at the sport, regularly setting records and bringing home Olympic medals.

Ford Konno, who would later become her husband, won three medals (two golds and a silver) in Helsinki and another silver four years later in Melbourne as another protege of the legendary coach Soichi Sakamoto.

Kawamoto-Konno, who was breaking American records as an underclassman at McKinley High, tried out for an Olympic berth as a 15-year old in 1948 and eventually swam for the U.S. in the Helsinki Olympics as a University of Hawaii freshman.

She captured headlines in the New York Times as a 17-year old when she broke the American 400 meter freestyle record of another Hawaii swimmer, Thelma Kalama, a 1948 Olympic gold medalist. It was a mark Kawamoto- Konno topped in the 1952 Olympic Trials at Indianapolis before taking bronze in the 400 freestyle and 400 free relay.

Along the way she won national AAU championships in four events over three years.

Kawamoto-Konno started swimming at age nine and by 13 was immersed in a consuming, seven-day-a-week regimen. “She would say Coach Sakamoto was a hard coach, but she felt like it was because he saw some potential in her,” Shishido recalled.

In a 1996 interview, Kawamoto-Konno recalled Sakamoto’s urgings. “ ‘You want to be a champion? You want to go to the mainland?’ he would say over and over. You had to want it, to swim through pain and discouragements.”

Kawamoto-Konno said, “For one thing, you have to be tenacious in what you undertake. You stick with it and stick with it as long as you can and be focused on it.”

She would also be driven by the example of her mother, Sadako Kawamoto, who, as a single parent, took in laundry and ironing in the family’s McCully home to make ends meet.

In Helsinki, Kawamoto-Konno received a telegram from her mother exhorting her to do the best for the family name.

“The sacrifices and the family name meant a lot to her and people of her generation,” Shishido said.

The lessons in persistence, she said, stayed with her when, at age 30, she decided to return to UH to finish a degree in education while juggling family and work responsibilities.

In a 2003 interview, she recalled, “It was so tough because I had to take care of the family and help my husband in his business. But I didn’t waver from my goal. I had to work very hard, but it was worth it.”

She became an elementary school teacher in Kaneohe and, later, Wailupe before retiring.

Decades after her Olympic glory, Kawamoto-Konno was still receiving requests for autographs. “She never told us much about that,” Shishido said.

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Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.