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Masaaki Kaneko
	Kaneko (center) at the 1968 Olympics
Personal information
Born	July 8, 1940 (age 84); Tochigi Prefecture, Japan
Height	171 cm (5 ft 7 in)
Sport
Sport	Freestyle wrestling
Medal record
Representing Japan
Olympic Games
Asian Games
World Championships

Masaaki Kaneko (金子正明, Kaneko Masaaki, born July 8, 1940) is a retired Japanese featherweight freestyle wrestler. Between 1966 and 1968 he won all major titles, including gold medals at two world championships, and at the 1966 Asian and 1968 Olympic Games.^[1]^[2] He was inducted in the Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2007.^[3]

Life and career

Kaneko was born in Ashikaga, Tochigi and started wrestling in high school. After graduating from Senshu University he joined the Japan Self-Defense Forces. He lost against Yojiro Uetake for the qualification to the 1964 Summer Olympics in bantamweight. He started weight training and changed weight classes to featherweight, eventually winning two world championships and the 1968 Summer Olympics. He was considered to be an "unusual" gold medalist, being 28 years old at the time, married, with a child. After retirement, he worked at the self-defense forces, and later became a secretary, and then a security director at Fuji Television.^[4]

References

^ "Masaaki Kaneko". sports-reference.com. Archived from the original on April 17, 2020. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
^ "Masaaki Kaneko". International Wrestling Database. Archived from the original on April 23, 2023. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
^ "Masaaki Kaneko". United World Wrestling. Retrieved November 4, 2019.
^ "『五輪と私』「攻めろ」協会長方針に反発自分流男子レスリングメキシコ「金」金子正明さん". 読売新聞栃木版 (in Japanese). 読売新聞社. November 24, 2013. Archived from the original on February 23, 2017. Retrieved February 23, 2017.