Connect with Us:    Fact Of The Day  Oct 1, 1998  There was a
time when Hironoshin Furuhashi, now Vice-President of FINA, was
more colloquially known as "The Flying Fish of Fujiyama".  On
August 16th, 1949, Furuhasi and his team mate, Shiro Hashizume,
both broke the world 1500 metres record in separate heats of the
American championships in Los Angeles. Japan had not been
invited to compete in the the previous year's first post-war
Olympics in London, but now the two 21-year-olds from Nippon
University were out to show their mettle.  The world record at
the beginning of the meet was 18:58.8. Hashizume started the
proceedings by clipping 23.1 seconds off the world mark with the
then unbelievable time of 18:35.7.  Now Furuhashi dived in, and
swimming his bumpy, highly unorthodox straight-arm stroke with
broken-tempo kick, he was soon into his stride systematically
breaking all the split times set in Hashizume's record-breaking
first heat.  The huge crowd gaped as Furuhashi went through the
400 metres in 4:44.6.