Victor Barna

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Victor Barna (also Viktor Barna [ ˈviktor ˈbɒrnɒ ]; * August 24, 1911 in Budapest , † February 28, 1972 in Lima ) was a Hungarian table tennis player . He was world champion 23 times. He also won 41 medals at world championships .

Name forms

Barna's birth name was Győző Braun , but because of the anti-Semitic mood in Hungary in the interwar period, some Jewish Hungarian players magyarized their German-sounding surnames. Therefore he changed his name to Viktor Barna . During the Second World War he changed his first name to Victor .

Career in Hungary

Barna's father was a press operator. Barna learned table tennis at the age of 13 in a local sports club in Budapest. Soon he was one of the top players in Hungary. For the first time he became world champion in singles at the table tennis world championship in Berlin in 1930 . In total, he won 32 medals at world championships: 23 gold, 6 silver and 3 bronze. He has been the Hungarian champion 17 times. He was world champion several times with the Hungarian team. He was most successful at the World Championships in 1935 , when he took 1st place in singles, doubles and mixed. In between, he often took part successfully in tournaments in North America, Australia and Europe.

Barna was able to backhand up a cut ball from her wrist. This technique became famous as the backhand flickball .

France

In 1932 Barna moved to France. His career was interrupted in 1935: his right arm was seriously injured in a car accident in France on May 10th. Nevertheless, he won the double competition at the World Cup in 1939 (with Richard Bergmann ).

Second World War

On April 27, 1939, Barna married the Hungarian Susanne Arany (also Suzy , † August 29, 2014 at the age of 96) in England . In September 1939, during the outbreak of World War II, he was in America with his wife. Barna returned to Europe to fight the Nazis. He enlisted in the British Army and was used as a parachutist in Yugoslavia. After the British withdrew from Yugoslavia, Barna stayed in England and held exhibition fights - often at the Savoy Hotel. In international fights he competed for England. He anglicized his first name: Viktor became Victor .

Victor Barna's younger brother Tibor - Hungarian master from 1941 - stayed behind in Hungary, he died in the Holocaust.

After the war, he and his wife settled in Pinner (London). In 1952 he received British citizenship. 1954 was the last world championship in which he participated.

post war period

He later became a representative for a London sporting goods manufacturer (Dunlop Sports Company), of course for table tennis products, but later also for tennis, athletics and golf. At the end of the 1950s he wrote the table tennis guide The Way to Success (Lübeck, Verlag Oskar Klokow), in 1962 he published the book Table Tennis Today (London: Arthur Barker).

On April 20, 1967, Barna founded the Swaythling Club International together with Dieter Mauritz and became its chairman.

In 1972 Barna died in Lima of complications from a heart attack.

In 1973, Barna's wife donated the Victor Barna Memorial Cup . This is awarded to the most successful participant in a world championship, whereby the success is calculated according to a certain rating system.

In 1981, Victor Barna was inducted into the International Jewish Sports Hall of Fame .

successes

  • other events
    • 1936 individual winner of the US Open

Results from the ITTF database

Association event year place country singles Double Mixed team
CLOSELY World Championship 1954 Wembley CLOSELY no participants silver Semifinals
CLOSELY World Championship 1953 Bucharest ROU Scratched Semifinals Quarter finals
CLOSELY World Championship 1952 Bombay IND no participants Semifinals Semifinals
CLOSELY World Championship 1951 Vienna AUT Scratched last 16 last 16
CLOSELY World Championship 1950 Budapest HUN Scratched Quarter finals Quarter finals
CLOSELY World Championship 1949 Stockholm SWE last 128 Quarter finals no participants 3
CLOSELY World Championship 1948 Wembley CLOSELY Quarter finals Semifinals Quarter finals 5
CLOSELY World Championship 1947 Paris FRA last 128 Semifinals Semifinals
CLOSELY World Championship 1939 Cairo EGY Quarter finals gold Quarter finals
HUN World Championship 1938 Wembley CLOSELY Semifinals silver last 16 1
HUN World Championship 1937 to bathe AUT last 32 Quarter finals last 16 2
HUN World Championship 1936 Prague TCH last 32 last 16 Quarter finals 3
HUN World Championship 1935 Wembley CLOSELY gold gold gold 1
HUN World Championship 1934 Paris FRA gold gold silver 1
HUN World Championship 1933 to bathe AUT gold gold Semifinals 1
HUN World Championship 1932 Prague TCH gold gold gold 2
HUN World Championship 1931 Budapest HUN silver gold silver 1
HUN World Championship 1930 Berlin FRG gold gold Semifinals 1
HUN World Championship 1929 Budapest HUN last 16 gold no participants 1

literature

  • Ossi Brucker: Table tennis king Viktor Barna turns 60. In: DTS magazine . 1971/16, pp. 8-9.
  • Winfried Stöckmann: Barnalities. In: DTS. 1986/9, pp. 4-6.
  • Ervin C. Brody: Victor Barna In The Hall Of Fame. In: The Table Tennis Collector. Issue 2, pp. 13–15. (English)
  • Robert Slater: Great Jews Sport. Jonathan David Publishers, 2004, ISBN 0-8246-0453-9 , pp. 29-31. (English)
  • David John Hughes: Victor Barna and the Barna Table Tennis Racket. In: The Table Tennis Collector. Issue 62 (PDF; 6.9 MB), pp. 10–15. (English)
  • Laszlo Polgar: Barna Viktor Pályafutásom. 2013, ISBN 978-963-9807-79-2 . (Hungarian)
  • Alan Duke: Viktor Barna (Part 1). In: The Table Tennis Collector. Issue 75 , pp. 32–35. (English)

philately

On April 10, 2012, Guinea-Bissau issued a block of stamps on the history of table tennis, showing Victor Barna. A special postmark in honor and with the image of Victor Barna was used on September 10, 1996 in Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tim Boggan : TIBOR HAZI - PART I (accessed November 28, 2013)
  2. ^ The Table Tennis Collector. No. 2, p. 15 ( PDF )
  3. ↑ Victor Barna in the IJSHOF
  4. ^ Victor Barna results from the ITTF database on ittf.com (accessed September 3, 2011)
personal data
SURNAME Barna, Victor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Barna, Viktor; Braun, Győző
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Hungarian table tennis player
DATE OF BIRTH August 24, 1911
PLACE OF BIRTH Budapest
DATE OF DEATH February 28, 1972
Place of death Lima