Swimming coach Shintaro Yokochi passed away this Sunday at the age of 87, the Portuguese Swimming Federation (FPN) said, remembering him as “one of the most important figures in Portuguese sport” who coached his son Alexander.
Shintaro’s “highest mark”, notes FPN, was Alexandre Yokochi’s participation in the 200m breaststroke final in Los Angeles in 1984, so far the only Portuguese swimming final in the Olympics.
“To the family of the victims, the FPN board expresses its most sincere condolences,” the statement said, which did not disclose the cause of death.
Yokochi, born October 31, 1935 in Yokohama, survived the first atomic bomb in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and moved to Portugal in 1958.
He turned down a possible participation in the 1960 Rome Olympics as a swimmer to become coach of the Sport Algés and Dafundo swimming teams at the age of 22.
He married and raised a family in Portugal and Alexander followed in his footsteps as a swimmer, winning a silver medal in Europe for Portugal, among many other accomplishments, with a seventh place finish in Los Angeles as a climax.
In his career, he spent time at Porto until he moved to Benfica in 1972, starting to coach his son, who left the elite competition in 1992 and was a university professor in the United States.
He led the swimming delegation at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, a process shrouded in controversy, as he recalled in an interview with Expresso, coaching the team days before the competition, and the results fell short of expectations.
“I was so disgusted that I decided to stay in Portugal to show that I can prepare a great team for the Olympic Games,” he said.
His wife, Irma Delgado, and their three children left him in Portugal, dedicating himself to swimming, given that he devoted “his whole life” to it.
He taught swimming at the Military Academy, coached the FC Porto team, worked directly with elite swimmers and at Benfica created the most famous of the Portuguese in order to experience in the final in Los Angeles “one of the happiest moments” of life, recalled he.
In addition to swimming, he had export companies and a restaurant in Lisbon, he even participated in the veterans’ championships, whose life is marked by war and the memory of the atomic bomb.
“I still dream of war and the bomb. I experienced dramatic moments that I will never forget,” he told Expresso.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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