HONORING JEWS IN SPORTS

CLASS OF 2025 UNVEILED

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Sport: Wrestling
Inducted: 1994
Country: Hungary
Born: July 2, 1906
Died: 1996

DESCRIPTION:

Hungarian wrestling champion Karoly Karpati performed in three Olympic Games, winning a gold medal in 1936 in the Lightweight Freestyle class. The Jewish wrestler ’s victory in Berlin
provided special significance, because it came at the expense of Germany’s vaunted titleholder, Wolfgang Ehrl.

Karpati won a silver medal in the Lightweight Freestyle class at the 1932 Los Angeles Olympics. In 1928 at the Amsterdam Games, he finished fourth in the same weight class.

Karpati was Hungary’s first “freestyle” wrestler, winning his first Hungarian National Junior title in 1925. He went on to win ten Hungarian National Championships, as well as European Lightweight wrestling crowns in 1927, 1929, 1930, and 1935. He also won one
silver and two bronze medals in European Championships competitions during the years in between.

Karpati was a Hungarian wrestling master trainer-coach and Olympics coach for many years. He authored six books on the sport of wrestling.

The Hungarian champion listed among his hobbies Einstein’s Theory
of Relativity. In 1982, International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch presented the bronze medal of the Olympic Order to Karpati for his lifelong work with youth in sports education.

Karpati survived imprisonment in a Nazi labor camp in the Ukraine during World War II.

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