István Bodor

István Bodor, a canoeist for Csepeli Vasas, won his first championship title in 1947 with his club’s canoe 1000m team. Bodor won four more championship titles in the same event between 1948 and 1953. During his career, he won two individual championship titles, both in 1951, when he finished first in both the 1000m and 10,000m. He achieved his greatest successes in C-2 with his clubmate József Tuza. In addition to his three championship titles (1949, 1952, 1953), he finished fifth in the C-2 1000m at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, while he won a silver medal at the 1954 Macon World Championships, also in the C-2 event.

Bodor prepared for the Melbourne Olympics with great will and determination, but in August 1956, he suffered a broken hand during the training camp, and so he could only follow the Hungarian successes by sitting next to the radio.

At the end of his canoeing career, Bodor found a new sport for himself and continued competing in motorboats. In this new discipline, he won the Hungarian championship title in 1958 and 1959. When he grew old from elite sports, he trained the young generation of his club, the Csepel canoeists, for years.