Ibolya Csák

Ibolya Csák (January 6, 1915 in Budapest - February 10 2006 in Budapest) was a Hungarian athlete best known as the winner of the women's high jump at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. She won a gold medal in the European Championships in Athletics in 1938 in unusual circumstances. Csák was the first Hungarian woman to win a gold medal in both events.

Her win in the 1936 Olympics was one of the tightest in the history of high jumping. Three athletes cleared 160 cm but none cleared 162. The three competitors were offered a fourth opportunity and Csák was the only one to clear the height.

Csák won the gold medal in the 1938 European championships after the original winner, Germany's Dora Ratjen turned out to be a man called Hermann, who disguised himself as a woman on the request of the Nazi Youth Movement. The height Csak cleared in that event was the Hungarian record for the high jump for the next 24 years.

She won nine Hungarian titles in all, including two in the long jump.

She was a competitor of the National Gymnastics Club (NTE) from 1929 till 1939, a gymnast from 1929 till 1932 and an athlete from 1933 till 1939. She also received the International Fair Play Life Achievement Award in 2005.

Trivia

Between 1936 and 1970, she worked in the central office of the Hungarian Banknote Printing Co.

She had two children, Ibolya (1940) and Attila (1942).

References

* [http://edition.cnn.com/2006/SPORT/02/10/athletics.hungary/ "Hungarian great Csak dies aged 91, "CNN", February 10, 2006 accessed February 11, 2006]
* [http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/olympics/features/2000/almanac/at_trackfield_women.html Sports Illustrated Olympic gold medallists in athletics]
* [http://www.sportmuzeum.hu/kiallitasok/hall_of_fame/csak.html HoF profile]
* [http://fotomuveszet.elender.hu/0012/nagykepek/jpg_kepek_001206/nagykep_00120607.html photo]