Famous Jewish athletes and sports leaders
in Hungary

 

Every week, Maccabi VAC presents a Hungarian Jewish athlete, sports leader, pruner, coach, who played a decisive role in Hungarian and universal sports.

Jenő FUCHS
(1882–1955)

 

Four-time olympic champion fencer

Neither rich nor a soldier, an outsider to the early fencing society, he never won a big competition in Hungary. For a long time, he was an independent competitor and a student of Gyula Rákossy. Later, he also played sports for MTK and NVC. At the beginning of 1908, he became the first in an extremely strong legal competition, and this, together with his eighth place in the championship, proved to be enough to be nominated for the 1908 London Olympics.

At the London Olympics, he adapted extremely well to the unusual conditions (the matches were held on slag) and made it to the final eight. There, he was tied for the first time with Béla Zulawszky, and finally defeated his opponent in the final. He won another gold medal in the team competition.

He was a defending champion at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics and continued his successes from four years earlier. After that, he could only be seen again in the fencing halls, not in competitions. He re-entered the Olympic team in 1924, but as a condition he had to prove in competitions that he was a worthy competitor. When the number of Olympic athletes was limited to four, Fuchs stepped back from the national team.

In 1928, he re-entered the Olympic qualifying competitions. The news brought the Hungarian sports world to a fever, as the four-time Olympic champion had not started a Hungarian competition for 20 years, in the spring of 1908. By that time, however, he was no longer the same: his fatigue and lack of practice left a mark on his performance, his once legendary calmness was no more. After he couldn’t make it to the finals, he quit competitive sports for good.

He participated a total of seven times in the Hungarian fencing team, but also competed in rowing and sledding. After his retirement, he opened a law firm and later found himself on the Budapest Commodity and Stock Exchange as an exchange secretary. Through his innovation, new statistical reporting systems were introduced that we still use to this day, several financial law studies were published and the stock market background apparatus was created .

In 1981, he was elected a member of the Jewish Sports Hall of Fame.