Ferenc Kocsis (wrestler)

Ferenc Kocsis (l.) At the 1980 Olympic Games in the final battle against Anatoli Bykow

Ferenc Kocsis [ ˈfɛrɛnts ˈkotʃiʃ ] (born July 8, 1953 in Budapest ) is a former Hungarian wrestler .

career

He grew up in the city of his birth and began wrestling there at the age of ten. At his first club, Kinizsi Húsos, he learned the first handles from Andor Mángó and also had his first successes in the youth field. In 1983 he became Hungarian champion for the first time in the senior welterweight division in the Greco-Roman style, the style he exclusively wrestled. In the course of his career, in which he also wrestled for Honvéd Budapest and Ganz-MAVAG Budapest, he had a few other coaches to whom he owed a lot. These were Gyula Tóth, Károly Jurida, Ferenc Kiss , Ferdinand Müller and Csaba Hegedűs .

Kocsis made his debut on the international wrestling mat at the 1976 European Championships in Leningrad , where he finished 5th. For the Olympic Games in 1976 he was not nominated by the Hungarian Wrestling Federation. At his next start at an international championship, the 1977 World Cup in Gothenburg , he celebrated six wins and only came in third. A double defeat against Janko Schopow from Bulgaria , both wrestlers were disqualified, probably cost him the title. Also at the 1978 World Cup, Kocsis wrestled very well, scored five wins and only lost in the final against Arif Niftulajew from the USSR.

With the victory at the European Championship in 1979 in Bucharest , a series of four titles in a row began for Kocsis. In 1979 he was also world champion in San Diego , 1980 Olympic champion in Moscow and 1981 European champion in Gothenburg . The Olympic victory, the greatest success of his career, he achieved through a victory hanging by a thread over Anatoly Bykov from the USSR. Shortly before the end of this fight, both wrestlers received two warnings for passivity. The judges then issued the third warning to Bykov, and Kocsis was Olympic champion.

In 1983 Ferenc Kocsis finally won a fifth title in his native Budapest , that of European champion. At the European Championships in 1984 he was defeated by a wrestler who would play a dominant role in the welterweight division for many years, Mikhail Mamiashvili from the USSR. Kocsis was denied participation in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles due to the boycott of these games by the socialist states.

He resigned from wrestling in 1985, initially worked as a club trainer for wrestling in Hungary and in 1990 took over the post of Hungarian national trainer for the Greco-Roman style from Csaba Hegedűs. He was very successful in this position and led Péter Farkas , Jenő Bódi and István Majoros to great success. In September 2013 he was inducted into the FILA International Wrestling Hall of Fame for his services to wrestling .

International success

(OS = Olympic Games, WM = World Championship, EM = European Championship, GR = Greco-Roman style, We = welterweight, back then up to 74 kg body weight)

• 1976, 5th place , EM in Leningrad , GR, We, with victories over Mikko Huhtala , Finland , Niels Madsen, Denmark and Gheorghe Ciobotaru , Romania and defeats to Iossif Beriaschwili, USSR and Petros Galaktopoulos , Greece ;
• 1977, 3rd place , World Championships in Gothenburg , GR, We, with victories over Christos Konstandopoulos, Greece, Jaques van Lancker, Belgium , Stanisław Krzesiński , Poland, Karol Kasap, Yugoslavia, Lennart Lundell , Sweden and one defeat against Vitezlav Macha , ČSSR ; in the fight between Kocsis and Janko Schopow , Bulgaria , both wrestlers were disqualified for being passive;
• 1978, 2nd place , World Cup in Mexico City , GR, We, with victories over Edy Weber, Switzerland , Kasap, Adalberto Barban, Cuba , Huhtala, John Matthews, USA , Ciobotaru and one defeat against Arif Niftulajew, USSR;
• 1979, 1st place , EM in Bucharest , GR, We, with victories over Huhtale, Ciobotaru, Kasap, Gelal Taskiran, Turkey , Wegeslaw Markatitschew, USSR and Andrzej Franas, Poland; in the fight between Kocsis and Nedo Nedew, Bulgaria, both wrestlers were disqualified for being passive;
• 1979, 1st place , World Championships in San Diego , GR, We, with victories over van Lancker, Macha, Tsujiro Noguki, Japan , Wjatscheslaw Martynow , USSR and Karl-Heinz Helbing , FRG ; in the fight between Kocsis and Schopow both wrestlers were disqualified for passivity;
• 1980, gold medal , OS in Moscow , GR, We, with victories over Kaj Jägersgaard, Denmark, Kasap, Schopow, Gheroge Minea, Romania, Huhtala and Anatoli Bykow , USSR;
• 1981, 1st place , EM in Gothenburg , GR, We, with victories over Peter Thätner , GDR, Franz Ransmayer, Austria, Philippe Vidal, France , Lundell, Andrzej Supron , Poland and Wladimir Galkin , USSR;
• 1981, 3rd place , tournament in Västerås , GR, We, behind Supron and Lundell and in front of Wiesław Dziadura , Poland, Magnus Fredriksson , Sweden and Jim André, USA;
• 1981, 9th place , World Championships in Oslo , GR, We, with victory over Jafar Alizadeh, Iran and defeats against Roger Tallroth , Sweden and Huhtala;
• 1983, 1st place , EM in Budapest , GR, We, ahead of Supron, Ștefan Rusu , Romania, Stojan Wassiliew, Bulgaria, Kasap and Rastislav Fojtík, ČSSR;
• 1984, 7th place , EM in Jönköping , GR, We, with victories over Taskiran and Ransmayer and defeats against Jouko Salomäki and Michail Mamiaschwili , USSR

Hungarian championships

Ferenc Kocsis became the Hungarian Greterweight Champion in 1973, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981.

Private

Kocsis has been married to the table tennis player Gabriella Szabó since 1985 .

swell

• Documentation of FILA's International Wrestling Championships , 1976
• various issues of the journals Athletik and Der Ringer from 1975 to 1985

Web links

Commons : Ferenc Kocsis  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Ferenc Kocsis in the Sports-Reference database (English; archived from the original )
• Portrait of Ferenc Kocsis with many pictures (Hungarian)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Outstanding Class of 2013 to Enter FILA Hall of Fame , accessed on April 16, 2017 (English)
2. ↑ DTS magazine , 1985/9 p. 34