Magda Gál Explained

Magda Gál
Birth Date:1907

Magda Gál (married name Házi) (1907 – 1990), was a Hungarian international table tennis player.[1]

Table tennis career

She was a prolific World Table Tennis Championships medal winner and secured eight silver medals and twelve bronze medals from the 1929 World Table Tennis Championships to the 1936 World Table Tennis Championships.[2]

Gál came short of a gold medal 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 and Anna Sipos, and secondly the war effectively ended her chances to compete at world level. She did however continue to play in the United States.[3] She also won two English Open 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.[4]

She married her fellow international player Tibor Házi in 1937, and in 1939, they fled to the United States to avoid capture by Nazi Germany because of their Jewish origins, and they settled in Bethesda, Maryland. She died in 1990 aged 83 and Házi died in 1999.[4]

See also

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Profile. Table Tennis Guide.
  2. Web site: Table Tennis World Championship medal winners. Sports123.
  3. Web site: Tibor Hazi Hoffman and Magda Gal. YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
  4. Web site: Hall of Fame. https://web.archive.org/web/20150405011017/http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Table-Tennis/History/Hall-of-Fame/Profiles/Tibor-Hazi. dead. April 5, 2015. Team USA.