WOMEN IN THE HISTORY OF HUNGARIAN SPORT

Abstract

The history of the most universal international sporting event, the Olympic Games, reflects faithfully the development of women in competition sports. The motto “Citius, Altius, Fortius” was set up to represent the ideal man in sport, traditionally, since ancient times women could not fit in this image. In spite of that, since the very beginning, women tried to open a way to not to be excluded from the modern Olympic movement.

Women athlete pioneers have appeared during the 20^th century all over the world, but this paper concentrates on the development of women’s sport in Hungary. Although sport was started to be organized in Hungary later than in the West-European countries, the importance of female sport was growing continuously, with an acceleration in the last decades of the 20^th century.

The statistics about participation and successes of Hungarian female athletes in the Olympic Games prove the value of women in sport, and the precedents of some outstanding personalities stain history.