Lajos Bencze

Bencze (born Biringer) Lajos started playing sports for the ÚTE in 1930. At first, he did gymnastics and athletics before switching to wrestling in 1936. During his nearly 27-year sports career he won 24 individual national championships in both freestyle and Greco-Roman. Before World War II he also competed occasionally under the name Bús.

Bencze was a member of the Hungarian national team between 1945 and 1954. In 1946 he won a gold medal in the flyweight category at the European Freestyle Championship in Stockholm, making him Hungary’s first European champion after World War II. In the same discipline he also won a silver medal at the World Championship in Tokyo in 1954. He participated at the Olympics twice. In 1948 in London, he finished fifth in the freestyle and sixth in the Greco-Roman. Four years later in Helsinki, he competed only in freestyle and again finished sixth.

In addition to his sports career Bencze worked as a mechanic. After finishing his sports career, he taught police officers self-defence juggling techniques full-time. In 1956 he earned a coaching qualification, and between 1957 and 1960 he coached the wrestlers of Bp. and then Újpesti Dózsa.