FROM
POMMEL HORSE
TO PUBLIC OFFICE
EILEEN LANGSLE Y/IG (1988); JOHN CRUMLISH (2009)
ONE of three gymnasts to tie for the gold medal on pommel horse at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, Hungary’s Zsolt Borkai has
emerged alone as a champion in the political arena.
The 44-year-old Borkai is serving his first term
as mayor in his hometown of Györ, the country’s
sixth-largest city and an important center of
history, culture and trade. He says his competitive
experience prepared him—if only somewhat—to
face opponents and win public approval in politics.
“You have to fight at both the Olympics and in a
campaign,” says Borkai, who hopes to win a seat in
the Hungarian Parliament in April and lead Györ in
a second term in next fall’s mayoral elections. “Also,
you have enemies, and you have to have the goal
to win. In sport there are more straight ways than
in politics. It was very strange. In sport everybody
loved me, but during the campaign not everybody
supported me.”
Borkai said earning public trust took care and
diligence. “I came from outside politics, so the first
and most important thing I needed to do was gain
the respect and strength I needed to lead the whole
city,” he says. “To accomplish that I had to take very
straight steps. The first year was very hard.”
“In sport everybody loved me,
but during the campaign not
everybody supported me.”
Sport remains high on Borkai’s agenda; he is vice
chairman of the Hungarian Olympic Committee,
and chairman of the HOC’s environmental
protection committee. Borkai notes that, “unique
in Hungary,” 1% of his city’s annual budget goes
to training facilities and equipment for young
athletes. Local sport support is vital, he says, since
the state system that developed him into an Olympic
champion no longer exists.
“I believe in the future of Hungarian sport,”
Borkai says. “The state supports sport less and less
every year, and the problem is that the municipalities
have to finance sports. I believe that sport can only
be successful if sport successes are very important for
the country. We have to work out a sport conception
and have to get support of the state, so we can have
good results. Then we will have a good reputation
for the country.”
Although political aspirations and responsibilities
have shifted Borkai away from intimate involvement
in contemporary gymnastics, he remains loyal to the
sport that initially made him a public figure. “My
connections to gymnastics aren’t so tight anymore,
because I have to focus on sports as a whole and not
just one sport,” he says. “But of course, I am never
going to forget my roots. I love sports because of
gymnastics, and I thank gymnastics for everything.”
—John Crumlish
