Best of Hungarian sport 2016

The year of 2016 was outstanding for Hungary concerning sport achievements. Just think about Euro2016, which moved the whole country, or the Rio Olympic Games, where our athletes kept on making history. But there were many other competitions, successes which are also worth recapping at the end of the year.

Putting together a list like this is a bit overwhelming, because you don’t want to leave anything out and, luckily, there are so many great achievements to choose from. So we thought we’d go sport by sport, and collect the greatest highlights of 2016. The list is not complete, still, the following were some of the best moments of Hungarian sport this year.

Athletics

Hungarian athlete Balázs Baji won a silver medal in 110 metres hurdles in July in Amsterdam at the 2016 European Athletics Championships, which was a huge success for Hungarian athletics. We’ve always had great thrower athletes, but it’s been some time since someone won a medal in a running event. Baji is young and talented, so he has every chance of achieving even greater successes.

At the same championship, Anita Márton finished in the second place of shot put, to later top it with an Olympic bronze medal in Rio. Also, earlier in the year, she put Hungary on to the medal table of the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Athletics with her silver medal, which was the first Hungarian medal at an indoor championship since 1999.

Badminton

Laura Sárosi’s qualification to Rio was an outstanding success, as no other Hungarian badminton player was able to do so in 20 years’ time. She was also awarded with a Fair Play prize for her selfless act of lending her backup shoe to her opponent on a match in May.

Basketball

It was sensational news that the Hungarian men’s basketball team has qualified for the 2017 European Basketball Championship, because men’s basketball team hasn’t managed to qualify for the EuroBasket since 1999. The team’s improvement can be traced through the years, so we’ll have another team to cheer for next year.

Euro2016

How could anyone forget the amazing participation of the Hungarian national football team at Euro2016? Returning to the top European soccer tournament after 44 years, the team remained unbeaten and won the group stage, but then lost to Belgium in the round of 16. It was unbelievable how these boys moved a whole country, even people who otherwise don’t watch football. Goalkeeper Gábor Király became an icon and the Hungarian matches made it onto several lists. It was definitely the highlight of Hungarian football in recent years.

Fencing

This sport has been traditionally very successful in Hungary, and this was proved at the Rio Olympic Games. Emese Szász started everything with her gold medal in individual epee fencing, which was followed by Géza Imre’s silver medal, the men’s epee team’s bronze medal and Áron Szilágyi’s title defending gold medal. Aside from the Olympic Games, Anna Márton won a silver medal in sabre fencing, and Emese Szász won a bronze medal at the European Championships earlier this year. Moreover, the men’s sabre fencing team finished in the 2^nd place at the World Championships.

Futsal

The Hungarian national team qualified for the 2016 European Championship after an utterly gripping match against Romania. Even though, the championship itself didn’t go too well, the qualification was a very memorable moment, because everything unravelled in the last seconds.

Gymnastics

It was shocking news that the Olympic Champion gymnast, Krisztián Berki couldn’t qualify to Rio. However, he returned with great successes after a year. He won the Hungarian Championships and did very well on the World Cup series. Furthermore, a gymnastics element was named after him, which is probably the highlight of the sport this year.

Judo

Although the Rio Olympic Games didn’t go the way our judokas wanted, they returned from the European Championships with two silver medals (Éva Csernoviczki, Krisztián Tóth) and one bronze medal (Szabina Gercsák). The 2017 World Championships will be held in Budapest, so we’ll be able to cheer for them.

Kayak-canoe

This is another sport, which Hungarians have always been good at. Normally, our athletes come home with plenty of medals from all world events. For instance, they came home with the most (14) medals from the European Championships. But the highlight of the year has to be Rio, from where our female kayakers came home with gold medals from three events. One of the stars was Danuta Kozák, who’s tripling in Rio was a historic moment in Hungarian kayak-canoe, not to mention that she became the only woman besides the eight time Olympic Champion Birgit Fischer, who was able to win in three different Olympic events, and Danuta is the first to accomplish this at the same Olympic Games.

Pentathlon

The Hungarian team (Tamara Aleksejev, Sarolta Kovács, Zsófia Földházi) won a gold medal at the 2016 World Modern Pentathlon Championships in Moscow, while Sarlota Kovács doubled, because she won the individual competition, as well.

Rio2016

We had only just awoke from the football-frenzy of Euro2016, when the Hungarian Olympic Team left for Rio with high hopes. It ended up being an eventful and quite successful Games for Hungary. Our athletes came home from Rio with 8 gold, 3 silver and 4 bronze medals, which add up to a total of 176 gold, 149 silver and 170 bronze all-time Olympic medals. We finished in the 12^th place of the aggregated medal table in Rio, which is not bad at all, considering the size and population of Hungary. Also, with our 495 medals won at Summer Olympic Games, Hungary is the most successful nation never to have organised Olympic Games.

Rio2016 Paralympics

The Hungarian team exceeded all expectations by winning 1 gold, 8 silver, and 9 bronze medals at the 2016 Rio Paralympics, finishing in the 47^th place on the medal table, out of 162 countries. 18 medals mark the third best result of all time for the Hungarian Paralympic team.

Shooting

This is another sport, which we wrongly tend to forget about. You might not know this, but Hungarian shooters performed pretty good this year. Péter Sidi, István Péni, Renáta Tobai-Sike are just a few people you should pay attention to, because they have been delivering great achievements.

Ski

If you’re not familiar with alpine ski races, you should definitely tune in for one of Edit Miklós’s races, because she’s been doing very well in the World Cup series. She recently finished in the third place in Lake Louise, which is one of her best results so far and is quite promising concerning the 2017 FIS Alpine World Ski Championships.

Speed skating

Even though we have amazing speed skaters, the sport hasn’t been in the media’s limelight as much as it would deserve to be. For instance, the first ISU Short Track Speed Skating World Cup of the 2016/17 season brought huge successes: the event ended with two gold and two bronze medals for the Hungarian skaters. The World Short Track Speed Skating Championships also brought about amazing successes: Shaolin Sándor Liu won a gold medal in 500 metres, while his brother, Shaoang, won a silver medal in 1500 metres and a bronze medal in 500 metres.

Swimming

When it comes to swimming, there’s probably one name that immediately comes to our mind: Katinka Hosszú aka the Iron Lady. She won an uncountable amount of medals in 2016 and proved that nothing is impossible with hard work. We probably don’t have to introduce her work more: she trains every day to become even better, correct the smallest mistakes, to progress. Even Michael Phelps commented that it’s incredible to see her swim.

She won three gold and one silver medal in Rio to then rocked the World Cup and the Windsor Short Track World Championships. She also founded her own swimming academy. She was chosen as the best female swimmer at the FINA World Aquatics Gala, and New York Times wrote a long article about her special relationship with Shane Tusup.

Katinka and her medals from 2016 (Source: www.nemzetisport.hu)

But we shouldn’t forget about our other great swimmers, like László Cseh, who won a silver medal in 100 m butterfly in Rio, or Tamás Kenderesi who surprised everyone with his bronze in 200 m butterfly, or Boglárka Kapás, whose happy tears said everything after her bronze in 800 m freestyle.

Moreover, the Hungarian team also rocked the European Championships back in May, where they finished in the first place of the medal table with 10 gold, 4 silver and 5 bronze medals. It was the most successful European Championships for Hungarian swimmers ever. Among others, Katinka Hosszú and Boglárka Kapás tripled, László Cseh doubled, while young talents like Tamás Kenderesi and Ajna Késely attracted our attention, as well.

Tennis

Currently Tímea Babos is the most famous Hungarian tennis player, who has achieved great successes with her doubles partners. For instance, with her ladies’ doubles partner, Yaroslava Svedova they made it into the Wimbledon final and also the WTA Finals. In individual, Timi beat stars like Venus Williams or Dominika Cibulkova this year, and advanced almost 50 places on the world ranking list.

Water polo

Even though the medals were very close in Rio, the Hungarian water polo teams came home from Rio without them. However, earlier this year, both the men’s and the women’s team did amazing at the European Championships. The ladies won the tournament, while the gentlemen finished in the third place. The 2017 FINA World Aquatics Championships held in Budapest is going to be exciting.

Wrestling

After the medals and qualifications at the European Championships, the Rio Olympic Games was full of drama for Hungarian wrestlers. But the year ended on a happier note, as Budapest organised the World Championships of non-Olympic weight-classes, where Bálint Korpási won a gold medal, and Emese Barka and László Szabó won bronze medals.

Photos: MTI, www.nemzetisport.hu

Copy editor: bm

Source: Daily News Hungary