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Hungary
Exciting sporting facts
The Past
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.
The Incredible
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.
International sporting events 2004
2 - 8 February: European Figure Skating Championships
in Budapest
5 - 7 March: World Indoor Athletics Championships in
Budapest
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Things to do
Elveszetten zsebkendömet szidott anyám."
("I've lost my little handkerchief.")
What you need:
A handkerchief and the phrase: "Elvesztetten zsebkendömet
szidott anýam érte". - ("I've
lost my little handkerchief.")
"Annak, aki megtalálja csókot adok
érte." - ("Whoever finds it, can have
a kiss.")
How to play:
The children form a circle. One child then takes the
handkerchief and walks around the outside of the circle.
Meanwhile, everyone else keeps repeating the first part
of the phrase about the lost handkerchief.
At some point, the child drops the handkerchief behind
one of the children standing in the circle. This child
picks it up, carries it to the other one, and gives
him/her a kiss. They then hold the handkerchief together
and start running around the circle once again. The
others clap their hands and repeat the second part of
the phrase over and over again.
The first child then steps back into the circle, whilst
the second child keeps the handkerchief. The game then
starts again.
Known elsewhere as:
In Germany, children play a similar game called 'Plumpsack
goes around'. There are no kisses, and the children
sing: "Don't turn around, Plumpsack goes around.
Don't turn round or laugh at it, or Plumpsack will have
you hit." If a child doesn't notice that the handkerchief
is behind them, then the others shout: "One, two,
three, rotten egg." The child must then step into
the middle and wait until another child takes over.
As this can take a long time, the variation with the
"rotten egg" is often left out.
The Italian version is known as 'Il Pungiglione' ('The
knifeman'). There is no handkerchief this time - instead,
the child who runs around the circle taps one of the
children in the circle on the back.
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