After a Slow Start, Olympic Medals Are Rolling in

Gold medalist Kristóf Milák.

Three Hungarian athletes triumphed over the weekend at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Kristóf Milák won the gold medal in the 100m butterfly, while hammer thrower Bence Halász won a silver medal and Veronika Major won the bronze medal in the women’s pistol final in Châteauroux with a great performance.

Kristóf Milák won the 200m event butterfly in Tokyo three years ago, where he was second in the 100m with a European record, while in the French capital on Wednesday he won the silver medal in the same style and on the same distance.

He came up first after the start, but his rivals started much faster than him and he only turned in fourth. However he managed the chase well, swimming the best second 50m in 26.50 seconds and finishing in 49.90 seconds.

Milák became the second male swimmer in Olympic history to win four medals in the butterfly event, a feat only matched by 23-time champion Michael Phelps of the U.S., who has finished on the podium eight times.

Milák also became the third Hungarian swimmer to stand on the podium at two different Olympic Games, after Krisztina Egerszegi and Tamás Darnyi.

Bence Halász, the athletics star from Szombathely (western Hungary) arrived in the French capital as one of the 18 medal hopefuls of the Hungarian athletics team. The two-time world bronze medalist was one of five throwers in Sunday’s final who have gone over 80 meters this year, having won the silver medal at the European Championships in Rome with 80.49 meters.

With his first throw, Halász’s rival, Ethan Katzberg of Canada, made it clear that he had come for the gold medal: with 84.12 meters, he had practically won the event.

The athlete from Szombathely started with 77.58 meters, which put him in fifth place after the first series, and then moved up to fourth place with 78.84 meters. Apart from Katzberg, Ukrainian Mykhaylo Kokhan (79.39) and Norwegian Eivind Henriksen (79.18) were ahead of him. Both of them dropped back to third place, and Halász managed to reach 80 meters (79.97 m) to take the silver medal.

Bence Halász won the tenth Olympic medal in the history of Hungarian hammer throwing.

After the event, Bence Halász emphasized that it was a “well-constructed competition” and that he was proud to have so many good throws. He stressed that this silver will be history tomorrow and the preparations for next year’s World Championships will begin.

The weekend’s bronze medal was won by Veronika Major in sport pistol. The Keszthely (western shore of Lake Balaton) native was also a finalist in air pistol where she finished eighth.

In the sport pistol final, unlike the air pistol final, competitors shoot for points rather than round scores. Every round better than 10.2 is worth points. In the finals, the competitors fire rapid fire shots.

After eight very close sets, Veronika Major, who has been a bit more reserved in recent finals, did not hesitate this time and defeated Manu Bhaker of India by four points to secure the bronze medal.

With 8 medals, Hungary currently ranks 12th in the Olympic medal table. The country secured 3 medals in fencing, 3 medals in swimming, one medal in shooting and one in athletics. With this result, Hungary is ahead of countries such as Brazil, Spain and Sweden. The table is topped by the U.S, followed by the People’s Republic of China and France.

Via MTI; Featured image via MTI/Kovács Tamás