Andrea Bodó-Molnár

Andrea Bodó started her sports career with the encouragement of her high school teacher Valéria Frantz-Herpich, who later became her trainer. Between 1950 and 1956, she was a member of Budapest Vörös Meteor and Budapest Honvéd. In 1955, she won the national championship in horse vault, and a year later in the team event. She was a member of the Hungarian national team from 1952-56. At the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, she won a silver medal in the team all-around and a bronze medal in the team portable apparatus competition. Four years later in Melbourne Olympics she finished first in the team portable apparatus and second in the team all-around competition.

While on a tour of the United States with the Hungarian Olympic team after the 1956 Olympics, Bodó escaped from Hungary. She was with her first husband, Hungarian sportswriter Miklós Molnar, but they soon divorced. Andrea studied physical education and teaching and went on to work in sports psychology and coaching rhythmic gymnastics in the United States. She worked at four Olympics as a gymnastics judge and coached the sport until 1979 at San Francisco State University, where she was a kinesiology professor.

Molnár-Bodó was also author of several books on gymnastics, including Introduction to Women’s Gymnastics (1973, with Blanche Jessen Drury) and Modern Rhythmic Gymnastics (1976). Bodó later married Charles Shapiro, a retired physics professor. Her daughter, Aniko, by Molnar, became a chemical engineer. In 2001, Bodó-Shapiro was inducted into the USA Gymnastics Hall of Fame.