Students of Soichi Sakamoto, the girls swim club

A Schoolteacher Dreams of Olympic Gold

The Leonard Lopate Show | Oct 30, 2015

Beginning in 1937, schoolteacher Soichi Sakamoto worked to transform a group of kids, children of Maui sugar plantation workers, into an indomitable Olympic swim team. Despite the anti-Japanese sentiment and the cancellation of the 1940 Olympic Games, the children thrived through Sakamoto’s unusual training regiment of unprecedented precision and discipline. Julie Checkoway tells their story in The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui's Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory.

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