Imre Pulai

Imre Pulai (born November 14, 1967 in Budapest) is a Hungarian canoer, who won two Olympic medals in the Canadian canoeing event, including a gold medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics with teammate Ferenc Novak.

As a twenty year-old, Pulai reached the individual (C1) 1000m final at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, finishing in sixth place. However, it was not until five years later that he won the first of his four world championship gold medals - in the C4 1000m in Copenhagen. In 1994 he retained that title and a year later he was individual world champion, ending Ivans Klementjevs's run of five straight victories in Duisburg. That achievement earned him the title of 1995 Hungarian Sportsman of the Year. At the Atlanta Olympics in 1996 he won the C1 500m bronze medal.

After Atlanta, his career took another dip until he teamed up with Ferenc Novak in the C2. In 1999, their first season together, the pair were world silver medallists and went on to win the C2 500m gold medal at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.

In 2003 Pulai won his fourth world championship gold in the C4 1000m in Gainesville, Georgia USA. Most assumed that would be the final medal of his long career, but in 2006 he made a comeback at the 2006 European Championships, held in Račice, Czech Republic, winning a C4 500m bronze medal. At the age of thirty-eight he was the second-oldest male competitor.

Pulai, nicknamed "Sumák", is 202cm (6'7) tall and weighs 108kg (238 lbs).

World Championships

2003 Flatwater Racing World Championships

* gold medal, C4 1000m

1999 Flatwater Racing World Championships

* silver medal, C2 500m

1995 Flatwater Racing World Championships

* gold medal, C1 1000m
* bronze medal, C1 500m

1994 Flatwater Racing World Championships

* gold medal, C4 1000m
* silver medal, C1 500m

1993 Flatwater Racing World Championships

* gold medal, C4 1000m

References

* [http://kataca.hu/sport/kajakkenu/pulai/ Profile]