#papp laszlo

RELAY RUNNERS

 Stafétafutók - Erdy Desző László and Péter (1958)

This fifth in our series of giant socialist statues adjacent to Budapest’s Puskas Ferenc Stadium depicts a relay team in full flight.  Their angles are extreme and the sense of movement is probably greater in this piece than any other statue on the field. Rightly so too - it’s a relay race, after all!

In the 1950s Hungarian runners were on top of the world. They had a kickass coach in the now-legendary Mihaly Igloi and a whole stream of world record holders in their ranks. Their amazing 1500m relay trio of Sandor Iharos, Laszlo Tabori, and Istvan Rozsavolgyi (which this statue may or may not be modelled on) were superstars. They should have won gold at the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. Sadly one month before that there came a training glitch in the form of... The 1956 Hungarian Revolution. Iharos didn’t even make it to the games, and the others were... distracted. After the games, Tabori defected to the U.S along with coach Igloi. The running scene was never quite the same.

Whether or not this awesome statue depicts specific runners (do you know? let ME know!), it is an fantastic sight, and an inspiring tribute to athleticism and competition. Suspended there at full strength, frozen in time, they’re forever sprinting away from the shining orb-like Papp László Sportaréna (well, since 2003, when it replaced the old Sportcsarnok which burned down in 1999... #stadiumhistorybore )...