Athletes Behaving BadlyMain MenuAthletes Behaving Badly: The Evolution of Socialist Hungary's Elite Sport Policy Through the Prism of PunishmentsAn Analysis of Elite Sport in Socialist Hungary Through Punishments Athletes ReceivedIntroductionHungarian Sport in the Cold WarMolding Athletes Behavior: Punishments as a LessonNo. 1 Crime: Defecting to the West1951: The Case of Sándor Szűcs1956: Mass Defections from Hungarian AthletesCase #2: Géza Kádas in 1957Case #3: Gábor BenedekDezső Gyarmati: The Athlete Who Got it AllThe Ambiguous Crime of Smuggling: Both A Prized Reward and Punishable OffenseConclusion: Impact of 1956 Revolution & Mass Defections on PunishmentsJohanna Mellis337c8aa15975253503108a6ba2daff82d0111139
Athletes' International Travel and Smuggling, 1948-1968
12016-12-13T08:05:04-08:00Johanna Mellis337c8aa15975253503108a6ba2daff82d0111139125951A Google Map that illustrates how much Hungarian athletes traveled for competitions up until 1968, the Mexico Olympics being the end point. Tracking their travels also shows the movement of goods, through athletes' smuggling, during this time.plain2016-12-13T08:05:04-08:00Johanna Mellis337c8aa15975253503108a6ba2daff82d0111139
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12016-12-13T07:53:30-08:00Smuggling How-to's5plain2016-12-13T08:22:24-08:00Most athletes bought the items for family and close friends. Some became athlete-businessmen. They strategized carefully, buying and selling goods all over the world, determining which goods would get the best price in each country (alcohol in Sweden, for example, was hard to find).
The below interview clip is from Vasas soccer player Kálmán Ihász, who was part of the gold medal-winning team at the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games. The interview is in Hungarian, and you can find the translation here. Uncle Schwarz (Schwarz bácsi), the man who Ihász and his teammates went to buy goods from in Vienna, was mentioned in an interview by another athlete, István Szondy. Szondy was a pentathlete (a close friend and teammate of Gábor Benedek, to be discussed later), who competed for Hungary from 1950-1956, until he defected to West Germany. The fact that two men from different sports, Szondy who competed prior to 1956, Ihász whose career lasted from 1958-1973, shows the longevity of Uncle Schwarz as a contact for athletes. It also shows how information related to smuggling was common to athletes of all sports and spanned different athletes' careers.
If an athlete played their cards right, he or she could earn a significant amount of extra income from smuggling on a truly international scale - and this during the Cold War.
One athlete-smuggler, a fencer named Gábor Erdős, smuggled goods to five different European countries in a single competition tour. See here a map that depicts his international commercial endeavors, as well as an interview clip that describes how he did it.