Every year, and every four years there is an athlete who has their dream of attending a World Cup or an Olympic Games shattered. There are just as many who have missed out on playing in the final game of a season when their team is about to win the League or the Cup. Undoubtedly there are many who are in isolation who have had dreams of another kind shattered.
Hopefully the story of Karoly Takacs will lift your spirits.
Karoly Takacs was born in Budapest in 1910 and after leaving school he joined the army. He soon made a name for himself in the sport of shooting. He won a European title in the 1930’s. Yet he missed selection for the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin on the grounds that he was a sergeant, and only commissioned officers were allowed to compete. Hungary lifted this sanction after the Berlin Games,
He was a member of Hungary’s world championship pistol shooting team and was a definite medal prospect for the 1940 Tokyo Olympics. However those Olympic Games were cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II.
This may well have been just as well for Takacs. As while still serving in the army he was taking part in a training exercise in 1938 when a defective grenade that he was holding exploded in his right hand. His hand was shattered. To make matters worse this was his shooting hand.
He was not discharged by the army but he was immediately plunged into the depths of despair. A month in hospital gave him plenty of time to reflect, and rather than ponder on what he had lost Takacs decided to focus on what he had. He still had a left hand.
He was determined that he would resume shooting and be as good as he had been before his accident. After being discharged from the hospital, Karoly secretly practised by himself for months. He told no one what he was doing. It is understood that the reason he took this approach was that he did not want to hear from people who would tell him his dream was impossible, people who would discourage rather than encourage.
Prior to his accident he had never used his left hand to shoot, but with sheer determination and hours of practice he managed to match the success he had had with his right hand using his left. A year after his accident in the Spring of 1939 he stunned many when he won the Hungarian pistol shooting competition. He then became a member of the Hungarian team that won the automatic pistol event at the World Championships.
With the war in Europe he had to wait a long time for his chance to take to the Olympic stage. His chance would come in 1948 in London. By then he would be 38 years old. He qualified for the rapid-fire pistol event.
As he took his place amongst the competitors in London he became the third known physically disabled athlete to compete in the Olympic Games
Once in London he bumped into the world record holder Argentina’s Carlos Enrique Diaz Saenz Valiente, who asked him why he was in London. His reply was “I am here to learn.”
Takacs, shooting with his left hand beat the Argentinean by nine points and the world record by ten points to claim the Gold medal.
At the conclusion of the event Valiente is said to have graciously congratulated Takacs and uttered the words “You have learned enough.”
Takacs was still competing when the Helsinki Olympic Games came around in 1952. He was now 42. Yet he successfully defended his Olympic title, and thus became the first repeat winner of the rapid-fire pistol event.
He attended the Olympic Games in Melbourne in 1956, but was unable to repeat his success and finished in eighth place. However he will always have a place in Olympic history.
By the time he retired from competition he had won the Hungarian national title 35 times. After he ceased competing he became a coach, and when he retired for the army had reached the rank of lieutenant colonel.
He would pass away in 1976 at the age of 65. Yet the memory of his success lives on. It lives on today and continues to inspire because of the way he faced what happened to him. How he worked alone to prove to himself and others that he could succeed despite the loss of his dominant hand. He must have had moments where he had doubts or despaired, but he bore those alone and triumphed in the end mentally, and in the highest competitive environment.
