Hungary

Exciting sporting facts

Ball games in the water
Although England is the cradle of water polo, it is the Hungarians who have dominated the sport over the decades. Water polo is the oldest Olympic team sport. Between 1928 and 1980, Hungary's water polo players won a medal at every Olympic Games. In Sydney, 2000, the Hungarian men's water polo team won their 7th gold medal. In total, their team have won 13 Olympic medals - 7 gold, 3 silver and 3 bronze medals.
The Hungarian Deszo Gyarmati is the most successful water polo player of all times, having won 4 golds and one silver in his five Olympic Games.

Extraordinary records
Tough guy
Alfréd Hajós (1878 - 1955) won two gold medals, and was the first Hungarian to win at the Olympics. During the 1896 Olympic Games in Athens, he won the swimming events over 100 metres and 1200 metres. The competitions took place on the same day in the open sea, which had a temperature of only 13° C! The swimmers were taken to the start by boat, and had to swim back to the shore.
Hajós was not only an excellent swimmer. He also played for the football club BTC, who twice became Hungarian Champions. In 1902, he played for the Hungarian national team. In Paris in 1924, Hajós, who was by now a successful architect, won the silver medal in the Olympic Art Contest for the building of the National Swimming Pool on Margaret Island in Budapest. No gold medal was awarded.

Turbo rowing
In 1998, the Hungarian fours managed to win 'the fastest canoeing race over 200 metres ever'. At the World Championships in Szeged in Hungary, they completed the distance in as little as 31.155 seconds, which gave them an average speed of 23.11 km/h.

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