Hungary Sports Medals of the Military and the MHS

[Gordon Craig]

Sports medals have never held much interest for me and none of the other local Hungarian collectors either. They are normally some what blaw, made in a dark coloured cheap metal with fencers, ping pong players etc pictured on the front. But the two I picked up yesterday were different. Both well designed and interesting from their connection to military type sports.

The first one was from the ZRINYI MIKL?S KATONAI AKAD?MIA (ZRINYI MIKL?S MILITARY ACADEMY). It is interesting in that depicted in the centre is the officers badge for graduating from the school. The back is date 1965 and refers to a Relay race. The Roman numerals III on the front would stand for third place. Somewhere in my reference material I have a picture of a military relay race where the contestants hand off an AK47 to the next runner rather than a baton. Unfortunately, I can not locate the picture to post it. Very possible that the medal awarded for this race was for something similar.

Regards,

Gordon

[Gordon Craig]

The reverse. Not nearly as interesting as the front.

[Gordon Craig]

The next medal was issued by the MHK an orgaization that promoted sports with a physical fitness slant. Ther name MAGYAR HONVED?LMI SZ?VETS?G (HUNGARIAN DEFENCE ASSOCIATION) certainly points towards a link to military associated sports. Many of the badges of this association also depict two flags. One with three sections for Hungary and another plain one for the Soviet Union. The obverse of this medal follows that trend. Here is the obverse.

Edited December 3, 2008 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

The reverse. I do not know what this medal was presented for but the date of 1952 certainly makes it interesting.

[Ulsterman]

Very cool!

A new collecting field.

I noticed that some of the Horthy era Honved sports medals are really well done.The gold ones seem to go for fantastic sums at auction.

The one for the annual army games was used as a prototype for a proposal for the Romanian Crusade Against Communism medal.

As a second topic, the official Communist era sports medal that I see occasionally-was that allowed or worn on official medal bars?

Edited December 3, 2008 by Ulsterman

[Gordon Craig]

Ulsterman,

Sorry but I don't know the answer to the wearing of the sports medal on the medal bar. I would tend to think not. Perhaps Charles can help here.

Regards,

Gordon

[hunyadi]

Officially - No - but I do have a photo of an AVH NCO who is wearing his Master Riflemans Badge and two of the AVH sports medals on his uniform. But I will have to wait on posting it...

When I was teaching at Bolyai there was a yearly sporing event at the university in which members of the academy competed in sports. There were also more national miltiary sporting events amongst the military educational systems as well. These were your standard "sporting" events. The photo that you may be refering to is the one from the battle course wich everyome had to do twice a year at the academy. The theme while I was there was simply route out the heavy drinkers and smokers. If you fialed the battle course - you were wahsed out...