Maiola Kalili

Maiola Kalili
Personal information
Surname:	Maiola Kalili
Nation:	United States
Swimming style (s) :	All-rounder
Society:	Los Angeles AC / Hollywood AC
Date of birth:	November 3, 1909
Place of birth:	Honolulu , United States
Date of death:	23rd August 1972
Place of death:	Los Angeles , United States
Medal table
Olympic games 0 × 1 × 0 ×

Maiola Kalili (born November 3, 1909 in Honolulu , Territory of Hawaii , United States , † August 23, 1972 in Los Angeles ) was an American swimmer and Olympian.

Career

Maiola Kalili and his brother Manuella (1912–1969) were taught to swim by their father. You should emulate the Hawaiian swimming star Duke Kahanamoku . Initially, the boys were not interested in competitions, but instead dived for coins that tourists in the port of Honolulu had thrown from ships into the water. Eventually they came under the aegis of coach Harvey Chilton, who founded the Hui Makani Swim Club and began recruiting diving boys for his team.

It is not known when the Kalili brothers moved to California . From the late 1920s they started for the Los Angeles AC and in 1931 for the Hollywood AC . From this time onwards, a trio of the Kalili brothers and Buster Crabbe dominated American swimming. At the National Championships in Long Beach , California in 1930 , Manuella was not at the start for reasons unknown; however, the brothers had only recently returned from Japan, where they competed in swimming competitions and broke several Japanese records. Maiola and Crabbe shared four titles, with one of them finishing second in another five races. In 1931 the national championships were held at the Waikiki Natatorium War Memorial . Again Maiola Kalili and Buster Crabbe were the dominant swimmers. On the Lūʻau at the end of the championships it was announced that Kalili had dived for coins in the harbor every morning during the championships. “Beyond a big smile” (“except for a big grin”) he did not reveal how much he had taken.

The national championships also served to qualify for a three-day international match between a US selection and a Japanese, which was played in front of 20,000 spectators every day in the Meiji Shrine Pool in Tokyo . The Japanese swimmers got twice as many points as the US-Americans and decided the international competition for themselves. At the 1932 Indoor Championships in New Haven , Connecticut , Kalili won the 100 and 200 yard races .

Despite this title, Kalili had to qualify for the 1932 Olympic Games in Los Angeles at competitions in Cincinnati . Since the Kalili brothers were afraid of flying, they took the train for the 2,000-mile stretch, which affected their performance, and Maiola Kalili was only able to qualify for the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay. Together with his brother Manuella, George Fissler and Francis Booth, he lost to the Japanese team and won the silver medal in this discipline. Later he illustrated a manuscript as part of a swimming learning campaign and presented the "relaxed" crawl style of the Japanese at the games.

In 1933 the Kalili brothers ended their sporting career. Then Maiola Kalili worked as a beach boy (responsible for the beach service). He also appeared as an extra in several films until 1957 ( The Rebel of Java ) , mostly in the role of a native from the South Seas .

Honors

In 2001 Maiola Kalili was inducted into the Hawai'i Sports Hall of Fame .

literature

• Bruce Wigo: Remembering Hawaii's Kalili Brothers - 90 Years Ago . In: Swimming World News . June 3, 2021, p. 30―32 (English, swimmingworldmagazine.com [accessed June 28, 2021]).

Web links

• Maiola Kalili in the database of Olympedia.org (English)
• Maiola Kalili in the Internet Movie Database (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Wigo, Remembering , p. 30.
2. ↑ Wigo, Remembering , pp. 30/31.
3. ↑ Wigo, Remembering , p. 31.
4. ↑ ^{a b c} Wigo, Remembering , p. 32.
5. ↑ Manuscript promoting Herald Learn to Swim campaign, c1930s. In: Australian Sports Museum Collection Online. May 29, 1956, accessed July 2, 2021 . 
6. ↑ Kalili Maiola. In: Hawai'i Sports Hall of Fame. Accessed June 13, 2021 .