Ibolya Csák (6 January 1915 – 9 February 2006) was a
Hungarian athlete.
Career
Csák was best known as the winner of the women's
high jump at the
1936 Berlin Olympics
The 1936 Summer Olympics (German: ''Olympische Sommerspiele 1936''), officially known as the Games of the XI Olympiad (German: ''Spiele der XI. Olympiade'') and commonly known as Berlin 1936 or the Nazi Olympics, were an international multi-sp ...
. She won a gold medal in the
European Championships in Athletics
The European Athletics Championships is a biennial (from 2010) athletics event organised by the European Athletics Association and is recognised as the elite continental outdoor athletics championships for Europe.
Editions
First held, for men ...
in 1938 in unusual circumstances. She 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.
She was a Hungarian Jew; she was one of a number of Jewish athletes who won medals at the Olympics in Berlin in 1936.
Csák won the gold medal in the 1938 European championships after the original winner, Germany's
Dora Ratjen, turned out to be a man. The height Csák 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 until 1939, a gymnast from 1929 until 1932, and an athlete from 1933 until 1939. She also received the International Fair Play Life Achievement Award in 2005.
Personal life
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).
See also
*
1936 Summer Olympics
*
Athletics at the 1936 Summer Olympics – Women's high jump
References
External links
"Hungarian great Csak dies aged 91, ''CNN'', February 10, 2006 accessed February 11, 2006
{{DEFAULTSORT:Csak, Ibolya
1915 births
2006 deaths
Athletes (track and field) at the 1936 Summer Olympics
European Athletics Championships medalists
Hungarian female high jumpers
Medalists at the 1936 Summer Olympics
Olympic athletes of Hungary
Olympic gold medalists for Hungary
Olympic gold medalists in athletics (track and field)
Hungarian Jews
Jewish sportspeople
Athletes from Budapest