As we wrote earlier, Hungary ended the 2024 Paris Olympics 14th in the medal table out of 206 competing nations, with six golds, seven silvers, and six bronzes. On the closing day of the summer games, Balázs Fürjes, a Hungarian member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and State Secretary in the National Assembly of Hungary talked to the Hungarian public television M1 about how he thought the Olympics went for Hungarian athletes.
Fürjes said that Hungary has ‘stood its ground in a tough competition,’ and expressed his gratitude to all the athletes for their great performances; as well as the fans who were present on site, supporting our athletes.
He also shared some disappointment over the fact that
in sports that Hungary has traditionally been strong at, namely kayak-canoeing, water polo, and wrestling, the ‘usual’ gold medals were not delivered.
However, on the flip side of that, Hungary had a gold medal performance by Viviana Márton in taekwondo, an event that was not expected to yield any medals for Hungary, as the State Secretary pointed out.
He went on to stress that the Hungarian Olympic family and the sports federations will have to evaluate the performance afterwards to see where there is room for improvement.
Fürjes also touched on the two major controversies at this year’s Olympics, the opening ceremony, and the inclusion of Algerian boxer Imane Khelif in the women’s competition. On the former topic, he said that the opening ceremony was France’s chance to introduce itself to the world, and such a performance cannot be offensive to anyone, as mutual respect should be a basic value.
On the latter issue,
he stated that the Hungarian Olympic Committee is initiating talks to revise rules to protect female equality in the competitions.
Overall, Fürjes claimed that the Paris Olympics was a success for the organizers, with over 9 million tickets sold to the events combined, and over 3 billion people tuning into the televised coverage for some period of time worldwide.
On the possibility of the Hungarian capital city of Budapest hosting the Summer Olympics someday, the State Secretary opined that it would be a huge effort, but, most importantly, it would require joint action between the government and the municipality of Budapest, and that's why he is ‘a bit sceptical’.
However, he also expressed his belief that, based on the success of a number of sporting events hosted by Hungary in the past seven–eight years, the country could host the Olympics at a level France just did, if not better.
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