István Somodi – High jumper, Innovator of Hungarian Athletics and Role Model of the All-Round Sportsman in the First Decades of the Twentieth Century

Author： Killyéni András

Publisher： Routledge Ltd

ISSN： 0952-3367

Source： The International Journal of the History of Sport, Vol.28, Iss.14, 2011-09, pp. : 1968-1986

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Abstract

István Somodi was an outstanding figure of Hungarian athletics before the First World War. His life and his all-round sporting career are unique in the history of Hungarian athletics, and an analysis of them provides an opportunity to learn about the life, the opportunities for improvement and the importance of the national and international successes of a talented athlete from the countryside. Somodi was the first Hungarian high jumper to develop a personal technique that was noticed at international level as well as at home. His style and technique are acknowledged as being the forerunners of the flop technique utilised by Dick Fosbury in 1968. Somodi's most outstanding international success was the 1908 Olympics, where he won the silver medal. His success had an impact on athletics and the high jump in Hungary, since it created a new school of thought, while at the same time influencing local sporting life. As a result, a sports ground of European standard was inaugurated in Cluj in 1911. The value of Somodi's achievements was heightened by the fact that as an athlete from the countryside, and who lived far from the capital, he rarely had the chance to take part in major competitions in the capital city or in Central Europe. He valued his studies more than his sporting successes, and although a great career was awaiting him in the Hungarian capital city of Budapest, he remained in his home town in the hard times after the First World War, and for decades worked hard training talented local athletes.