Archive for the ‘sporty’ Category

12 Apr

Herald News … The Power of Sport – Eurosport

Posted by www.rollinginbudapest.com in Herald News for Hungarians who speaks English!, Hungary, sporty. Tagged: , , .

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As an eventful summer approaches in the world of sports, Warner Bros. Discovery‘s weekly thematic magazine show The Power of Sport returns on Wednesdays, which sheds an exciting light on current events in the world of sports through human stories and issues.

The document series “The Power of Sport” started recently on the Eurosport channel, in which viewers can watch interviews with the world’s top athletes. The 30-minute, 15-minute series starts with exclusive interviews: among others, the Polish soccer player with an amputated leg, Marcin Oleksy, and Gabriela Andersen-Schiess, a former Swiss long-distance runner, who took part in the first Olympic women’s marathon at the 1984 Summer Olympic Games. The episode can be seen today from 18:38 on the Eurosport channel, but it will be shown several times in the coming weeks.

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The episode that will be broadcast today (April 12) will also have quite a few Hungarian aspects! An exclusive interview will be shown with one of the youngest and at the same time most talented competitors in the domestic triathlon sport, Fanni Szalai, about whom Eurosport also wrote that “a 15-year-old Hungarian super talent kicked in the triathlon sport with two feet.” In the video, in addition to Fanni, another well-known representative of the sport, Csaba Kuttor, with more than 30 years of experience as a triathlete, also speaks, who is also Fanni Szalai’s coach.

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The channel will also show the Paris-Roubaix cycling race and the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters tennis tournament. Further episodes will also deal with Pride month, World Refugee Day, and the Ocean Race.

The final episode will be broadcasted on July 26, when the one-year countdown to the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics begins.

Scott Young, Vice President of Content and Production, Warner Bros. Discovery Sports Europe, said: “The power of sport lies in its ability to unite people around the world through diversity, competition and, above all, the sacrifices made by athletes who inspire fans to achieve outstanding performances. As we prepare for what promises to be a particularly exciting summer in the world of sports, our goal is to get to know the athletes on a deeper level with the fans and tell their stories, with which we go far beyond content limited to live broadcasts.”

The first season of The Power of Sport was launched spring 2022 and featured more than 60 reports, including interviews with Janja Garnbret (Olympic sport climbing champion), Susie Wolff (CEO of ROKiT Venturi Racing), Tim Gajser (three-time motocross world champion) and with Bartosz Zmarzlik (two-time slag engine world champion). He recounted the journey of iconic athletes to success and presented initiatives by which participants in the sports world support the communities they come from.

Update by Aggie Reiter

10 Jan

The Queen of Gymnastics Agnes Keleti turned 100 years on Saturday, January, 9.

Posted by www.rollinginbudapest.com in Budapest - Hungary, Hungary, sporty.

Agnes Keleti was a headline celebrated to her 100th birthday on Saturday, January, 9, in the media not just in her native Budapest Hungary but around the world. She is the oldest living Olympic champion. Was a Holocaust survivor and winner of 10 Olympic medals in gymnastics … including five golds.

Keleti went through very hard and exciting chapters of her life … achievements, adventures, tragedies and perseverances, as she said, passed away in a flash of lightning. Also added Q.: “These 100 years felt to me like 60 yrs.”. When asked her what is the receipt to a long Life she answered Q.” Never look into the mirrow”. As always she also has kept her great sence of humor.

Agnes Keleti, was born Agnes Klein in 1921, had her illustrious career interrupted by World War II and the subsequent cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics. Forced off her gymnastics goup in 1941 because of her Jewish ancestry, Keleti went into hiding in the Hungarian countryside where she survived the Holocaust by assuming a false identity and working as a maid. Her mother and sister survived the war with the help of famed Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, but her father and other relatives perished at Auschwitz, among the more than half a million Hungarian Jews killed in Nazi death camps and by Hungarian Nazi collaborators.

Resuming her career after the war, Keleti said her main goal was to travel around the world in the first place cause she always loved travel to different countries cause in those days was not an easy thing to have a passport, to leave Hungary and then came Q.” “I loved gymnastics because it was possible to travel for free.”

Also said during the interview how much adors traveling saying, the experiences gained while traveling the world were more precious than her 10 Olympic medals. Still today she would travel-and-travel but the pandemic rules the world but still hope when it will leave she will take off to explore additional landscapes.

In 1948 was set to compete at the 1948 London Olympics but a last-minute ankle injury dashed her hopes. Four years later, she made her Olympic debut at the 1952 Helsinki Games at the age of 31, winning a gold medal in the floor exercise as well as a silver and two bronzes.

Despite her achievements — with six medals she was the most successful athlete at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics and she is recognized as one of the most successful Jewish Olympic athletes of all time — the still-vivacious Keleti said she most values her health and the simple fact that she has lived. On the eve of her birthday Q.: “I live well, and it’s great that I’m still healthy, And I love life, Health is the essence. Without it, there is nothing.”

Those travels would ultimately result in a nearly 60-year absence from her native Hungary. At the age of 35, while she was becoming the oldest gold medalist in gymnastics history in Melbourne, the Soviet Union invaded Hungary following an unsuccessful anti-Soviet uprising.

Keleti remained in Australia and sought political asylum. She then immigrated to Israel the following year and worked as a trainer and coached the Israeli Olympic gymnastics team until the 1990s.

After leaving Hungary for the Olympics in 1956, she visited her native country only once before returning to Budapest in 2015.

Keleti was awarded the Israel Prize in 2017 — considered that country’s highest cultural honor — and is the recipient of numerous other prestigious awards, including being named one of Hungary’s “Athletes of the Nation” in 2004. She holds individual gold medals in the floor exercise, balance beam and uneven bars.

Starting this year, Israel’s championship for artistic gymnastics for women will bear the name of appraised Jewish Olympic gymnast Ágnes Keleti in honor of her upcoming 100th birthday celebrated on January 9. Agnes Keleti remains the most successful Jewish female athlete ever in Olympic history.

As said in the media, today, Keleti follows her doctor’s recent advice to avoid performing full leg splits, and her near-perpetual smile and infectious laughter are reminders that even in times of great hardship, there remains the immutable potential for perseverance and the joy of life.

© Aggie Reiter