was a Japanese

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

athlete. , he is the only person to have held

world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

s in both the

long jump The long jump is a track and field event in which athletes combine speed, strength and agility in an attempt to leap as far as possible from a takeoff point. Along with the triple jump, the two events that measure jumping for distance as a ...

and the

triple jump The triple jump, sometimes referred to as the hop, step and jump or the hop, skip and jump, is a track and field event, similar to the long jump. As a group, the two events are referred to as the "horizontal jumps". The competitor runs down th ...

Biography

The first results known for Nambu are from the mid-1920s. He was a member of the Japanese Olympic team at the 1928 Summer Olympics in

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

, where he competed in three events. His best performance came in the triple jump, where he placed fourth, while his countryman

Mikio Oda was a Japanese athlete and the first Japanese Olympic gold medalist. He was the first Asian Olympic champion in an individual event.world record A world record is usually the best global and most important performance that is ever recorded and officially verified in a specific skill, sport, or other kind of activity. The book ''Guinness World Records'' and other world records organization ...

Jesse Owens James Cleveland "Jesse" Owens (September 12, 1913March 31, 1980) was an American track and field athlete who won four gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games. Owens specialized in the sprints and the long jump and was recognized in his lifet ...

broke the world record less than four years later but it stood as an Asian record till beaten by

Hiroomi Yamada was a Japanese long jumper who competed in the 1964 Summer Olympics and in the 1968 Summer Olympics The 1968 Summer Olympics ( es, Juegos Olímpicos de Verano de 1968), officially known as the Games of the XIX Olympiad ( es, Juegos de la XIX O ...

in 1970. The next year, at the Los Angeles Games, he was one of the favourites for the Olympic titles in both horizontal jumps. Nambu was disappointed with his third place in the long jump, but took revenge in the triple jump final, held a few days after the long jump. His winning mark of 15.72 m set a new world record. Thereby, Nambu became the first athlete to hold the world record in both horizontal jumps. He retained both records until 1935, when he lost them to

(long jump) and Jack Metcalfe (triple jump). Nambu was also a strong sprinter. He won the 100 m race at the 1930 and 1933 Japanese Championships and set a Japanese record at 10.6 seconds in 1931. After retiring from competitions Nambu became a sports journalist for ''

Mainichi Shimbun The is one of the major newspapers in Japan, published by In addition to the ''Mainichi Shimbun'', which is printed twice a day in several local editions, Mainichi also operates an English language news website called ''The Mainichi'' (previ ...

''. He also remained active in sports, being head coach for the Japanese Athletics Association, and acting as manager of the national team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In 1992, he was awarded the

Olympic Order The Olympic Order, established in 1975, is the highest award of the Olympic Movement. It is awarded for particularly distinguished contributions to the Olympic Movement, i.e. recognition of efforts worthy of merit in the cause of sport. Traditi ...

in silver by the

International Olympic Committee The International Olympic Committee (IOC; french: link=no, Comité international olympique, ''CIO'') is a non-governmental sports organisation based in Lausanne, Switzerland. It is constituted in the form of an association under the Swiss ...

(IOC). He died of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...

aged 93.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nambu, Chuhei 1904 births 1997 deaths Sportspeople from Sapporo Japanese male long jumpers Japanese male triple jumpers Japanese male sprinters Olympic male long jumpers Olympic male triple jumpers Olympic male sprinters Olympic athletes of Japan Olympic gold medalists for Japan Olympic bronze medalists for Japan Olympic gold medalists in athletics (track and field) Olympic bronze medalists in athletics (track and field) Athletes (track and field) at the 1928 Summer Olympics Athletes (track and field) at the 1932 Summer Olympics Medalists at the 1932 Summer Olympics Japan Championships in Athletics winners World record setters in athletics (track and field) Deaths from pneumonia in Japan 20th-century Japanese people