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Paying homage to the first Duke

By TERRY TOMALIN

© St. Petersburg Times, published October 2, 2000

MANLY, Australia -- The taxi driver didn't have a clue.

"You're looking for a statue of John Wayne?" he said.

"No," I said. "I'm looking for the statue of Duke, not the Duke."

Like many people, the cabbie thought the men were one and the same.

"I'm talking about a real American hero," I explained. "Not the guy who plays one on TV."

The cab driver shrugged and pointed toward the beach. As I walked down the promenade, I spotted two park rangers. Surely they would know.

"Olympic gold medalist," I said. "Father of surfing."

They just shook their heads. "You might try the surf shop," one suggested. "If anybody would know, they would."

By now I was beginning to think I had imagined the whole thing. But how could I travel halfway around the world and not even try to pay my respects to the man who started it all?

"This might sound crazy," I told the woman in the surf shop. "But I'm looking for this statue ... "

"Of Duke," she said. "It is right up on the hill overlooking Freshwater Bay."

Her sons surf, she said, and they knew the story of the American Olympic hero who brought the Sport of Hawaiian Kings to Australia.

It would be safe to bet that among sports fans in Sydney for the Olympics, more Aussies than Yanks knew the story of the man who once was the fastest human in the water.

When 21-year-old Duke Kahanamoku's times were first sent to the mainland for approval by the Amateur Athletic Union in 1911, the thought was that someone must have made a mistake. Back then, nobody swam the 100 free in less than a minute. That magic mark was swimming's 4-minute mile.

"Were you using an alarm clock for a stopwatch?" they asked.

The young Hawaiian had set the record swimming in the saltwater of Honolulu Harbor. Surely, the saltwater and current had something to do with the miraculous performance? After all, Kahanamoku had swum the distance nearly five seconds faster than anyone had before.

So Duke traveled to the mainland, where he dazzled audiences with his adaptation of the Australian crawl. He earned a spot on the 1912 U.S. Olympic team and traveled to Stockholm, Sweden. He broke the Olympic record and received his first gold medal.

World War I stopped the Olympics for a while, but when the world turned its attention to sport again, Duke won two more golds at the 1920 Games in Antwerp, Belgium, in the 100 free and a relay.

In 1924, at Paris, a young upstart named Johnny Weissmuller knocked the 34-year-old Duke off the freestyle thrown. Duke would later say, "It took Tarzan to beat me."

But the Olympics hadn't seen the last of the bronzed Hawaiian. He competed again in 1932 at Los Angeles and at age 42 won a bronze medal in water polo.

And though these accomplishments should be enough to make any lifetime, Duke is remembered more for what he did in the ocean than in the pool. An accomplished waterman, Duke is said to have rode the longest distance ever on a surfboard, more than 13/4 miles, atop a monster wave spawned by a Japanese earthquake.

But perhaps Duke's most defining moment came in 1925 when he and some friends were relaxing on a beach at Corona Del Mar, Calif. They spotted a luxury yacht in trouble a few hundred yards offshore.

Of the 29 people aboard the Thelma, 17 died. But eight owed their lives to Duke, who made trip after trip to the stricken craft on his surfboard.

In Australia, where most people live within driving distance of water, Duke is viewed not only as a hero but as a prophet of sorts.

They remember the day in 1914 Duke visited Freshwater Bay, just north of Manly, to give a swimming demonstration. He hadn't thought to bring a surfboard, so he went out, got a piece of wood and made one.

The lifeguards warned him not to venture into the surf for fear of "man-eating sharks." Duke paddled out anyway and surfed for several hours. When he returned, the guards asked Duke if he had seen any sharks.

"Sure, I saw plenty," he said.

"And they didn't bother you?" the guards asked.

"No," Duke said. "And I didn't bother them."

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