Magda Gál (married name Házi) (1907 – 1990), was a Hungarian international

table tennis Table tennis (also known as ping-pong) is a racket sport derived from tennis but distinguished by its playing surface being atop a stationary table, rather than the Tennis court, court on which players stand. Either individually or in teams of ...

player.

Table tennis career

She was a prolific

World Table Tennis Championships The World Table Tennis Championships are table tennis competitions sanctioned by the International Table Tennis Federation (ITTF). The World Championships have been held since 1926, biennially since 1957. Five individual events, which include men ...

medal winner and secured eight

silver medal A silver medal, in sports and other similar areas involving competition, is a medal made of, or plated with, silver awarded to the second-place finisher, or runner-up, of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, ...

s and twelve

bronze medal A bronze medal in sports and other similar areas involving competition is a medal made of bronze awarded to the third-place finisher of contests or competitions such as the Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games, etc. The outright winner receives ...

s from the

1929 World Table Tennis Championships The 3rd World Table Tennis Championships were held in Budapest from January 14 to January 21, 1929. Medalists Team Individual References External linksITTF Museum {{World Table Tennis Championships World Table Tennis Championships Worl ...

to the

1936 World Table Tennis Championships The 1936 World Table Tennis Championships were held in Prague from March 12 to March 18, 1936. The championships were criticised for the bad management and poor tables. The Lucerna Palace arena (a 4,000-seat, underground concert hall) conditions ...

. Gál came short of a

gold medal A gold medal is a medal awarded for highest achievement in a non-military field. Its name derives from the use of at least a fraction of gold in form of plating or alloying in its manufacture. Since the eighteenth century, gold medals have b ...

for two reasons; first the fact that with various doubles partners she was unable to overcome the six times world champion pairing of

Mária Mednyánszky Mária Mednyánszky (7 April 1901 Budapest – 22 December 1978 also Budapest) was a Hungarian international table tennis star. Table tennis career She became the first official women's world champion winning the women's singles event go ...

and

Anna Sipos Anna Sipos (3 April 1908 – 1 January 1988) was a Hungarian international table tennis player. Table tennis career She won 21 medals in the World Table Tennis Championships Eleven of these were gold medals. including six consecutive women's do ...

, and secondly the

war War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

effectively ended her chances to compete at world level. She did however continue to play in the United States. She also won two

English Open The English Open was a professional golf tournament held in England. First played in 1988, it was an annual event on the European Tour until 2002. After several aborted attempts at reviving the tournament, it returned to the tour schedule in 20 ...

titles.

Personal life

Gál was born into a banking family in 1907, and was the only woman competitor on the table tennis team at the

University of Szeged The University of Szeged () is a Public university, public research university in Szeged, Hungary. Established as the Jesuit Academy of Kolozsvár in present-day Cluj-Napoca in 1581, the institution was re-established as a university in 1872 by ...

. She married her fellow international player Tibor Házi in 1937, and in 1939, they fled to the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

to avoid capture by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...

because of their Jewish origins, and they settled in

Bethesda, Maryland Bethesda () is an unincorporated, census-designated place in southern Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. Located just northwest of Washington, D.C., it is a major business and government center of the Washington metropolitan region ...

. She died in 1990 aged 83 and Házi died in 1999.

References

Hungarian female table tennis players 1907 births 1990 deaths American female table tennis players World Table Tennis Championships medalists 20th-century American sportswomen 20th-century Hungarian sportswomen {{Hungary-tabletennis-bio-stub

Table tennis career

Personal life

See also

References