Viktor Barna
Viktor Győző Barna (born Győző Braun; 24 August 1911 – 27 February 1972) was a Hungarian and British champion table tennis player as well as a record five times singles World Champion.[1]
He won 41 World Championship medals (including 22 gold medals) and also won 20 English Open titles.
Personal life
[edit]Barna's birth name was Győző Braun, but because of anti-Semitism in Hungary at the time, he changed his name to a Hungarian-sounding name. In September 1939, during the outbreak of the Second World War, he and his wife were in America. Barna returned to Europe, in order to fight against the Nazis. He joined the British army as a parachutist, and fought in Yugoslavia. After the British withdrew from Yugoslavia, Barna remained in England. After the war he settled with his wife in London. He became a British national in 1952. Later he became a representative for the Dunlop Sports Company and continued traveling the world in this capacity. It was during one of these tours in 1972 that he succumbed to a heart attack in Lima, Peru.
His brother Tibor Barna was the 1940 Hungarian table tennis national champion.[2]
Writing
[edit]In 1957, he published the book "How to Win at Table Tennis" (London: Pitman) ISBN 978-0-273-41699-9.[3] Then, in 1962, he published the book Table Tennis Today (London: Arthur Barker) and in 1971 Your Book of Table Tennis ISBN 978-0-571-09345-8.
Legacy
[edit]Barna, who was Jewish, was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame in 1981.
Barna was inducted into the International Table Tennis Foundation Hall of Fame in 1993.[4]
See also
[edit]- List of select Jewish table tennis players
- List of World Table Tennis Championships medalists
- List of England players at the World Team Table Tennis Championships
References
[edit]- ^ Table Tennis. Time Magazine. 4 February 1935
- ^ "The History of Sport and Physical Education among the Jewish People in Hungary in the Last 120 Years". ISOH.
- ^ Amazon
- ^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 17 June 2011. Retrieved 29 December 2008.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
External links
[edit]- "Bio, October 2003". Archived from the original on 8 July 2004. Retrieved 24 September 2013.
- Cigarette card bio
- Jewish Sports bio
- "The Magnificent Magyar", October 2005[usurped]
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Categories:
- 1911 births
- 1972 deaths
- Hungarian male table tennis players
- English male table tennis players
- Hungarian emigrants to England
- Naturalised citizens of the United Kingdom
- Jewish Hungarian sportspeople
- Table tennis players from Budapest
- World Table Tennis Championships medalists
- British Army personnel of World War II
- Jewish British sportspeople
- 20th-century English sportsmen
- 20th-century Hungarian sportsmen