Kenkichi Oshima, son of a footwear dealer, already showed a talent for the triple jump in high school competitions. After he enrolled in law school at Kansai University, he was second and third in long jump and triple jump, respectively, at the Japanese Athletics Championships but was not selected for the Olympic team for Amsterdam. Oshima was the triple jump favorite at Los Angeles in 1932 but suffered severe burns in a bathing accident shortly before the Olympics and was not in his best form, but he secured the bronze medal in Los Angeles and was sixth in 1936 at Berlin, where he carried the Japanese flag at the Opening Ceremony. In 1934, he won the national title in the triple jump and bettered the world record of 15.82 metres, which was not recognized, however, by the IAAF.
After his competitive career, Oshima graduated from Kansai University and then became a sports journalist with the daily newspaper Mainichi Shimbun. He lived in Germany for most of World War II as a correspondent, became fluent in German, and was a close friend of Carl Diem. After his return to Japan in 1945, Oshima was appointed a professor and vice-president at the Sport University in Osaka. He modernized athletics in Japan and introduced up-to-date training methods. From 1949 he was a member of the Japanese Olympic Committee and helped prepare the Japanese team for the 1964 Olympic Games in Tokyo. In 1980, he strongly opposed the boycott of the Moskva Games. In 1982 Oshima received the Hans-Heinrich Sievert Award and in 1985 the Olympic Order in Silver. He was also the author of numerous books on sports and translated German books and articles into Japanese. At the age of 76, he died of esophageal cancer.
Personal Best: TJ – 15.63 (1934).
Japan