Hungarian Conservative

Swimmer Zsófia Konkoly won her second gold medal at the 2024 Paralympics yesterday; while long jumper Luca Ekler defended her title and won another gold in her event after the Tokyo games in 2021. The Hungarian para-athletes also earned a silver in fencing, as well as a bronze in swimming and table tennis respectively.

Hungary performed outstandingly well at the last Paralympic Games in Tokyo in 2021, collecting seven gold medals. This year, there are 39 Hungarian para-athletes competing in the French capital at the 17th Summer Paralympic Games.

The Hungarian prime minister has granted an interview to sports daily Nemzeti Sport to discuss the country’s performance at the Paris Olympics this summer. While he believes that the six gold medals won is a ‘respectable showing’, he also thinks that Hungary’s rightful place is in the top ten in the medal table. Also, while he is proud of his country being the best-performing in Eastern Europe, he thinks that it is the interest of Hungary that other countries in the region be successful in sports as well.

Fürjes told Hungarian public media that the 2024 Summer Olympics was overall a success for the French organizers, with over 9 million tickets sold to the events combined and over 3 billion TV viewers tuning in to the coverage. He also expressed his belief that Hungary could host the Olympics at the same level France just did. However, organizing the Olympics would take ‘joint action’ between the government and the Budapest leadership, which makes him somewhat sceptical about the likelihood of it happening.

Hungary is currently sitting in 13th place on the Olympic medal table with four golds, three silvers, and four bronzes. That is the best in our region, ahead of Romania (15th place), Ukraine (16th), and Croatia (22nd). Also, with the exception of New Zealand, all the countries ahead of us have significantly higher populations.

Kós became the second Hungarian male swimmer to win this event at the Olympics, following Sándor Wladár, the current president of the Hungarian Swimming Federation. This victory marked Hungary’s 30th Olympic gold in swimming, and the first Hungarian gold medal in Paris.