Fifty-year-old Henrietta Ónodi is an Olympic champion gymnast, the primary European champion of Hungarian ladies’s gymnastics, honorary citizen of Békéscsaba.
He was born on Might 22, 1974 in Békéscsaba. From the age of 5, he did gymnastics at Előre Spartacus in Békéscsaba, and as a diligent scholar of the Unyatyinszky couple, he developed into an actual basic. In 1986, he was fourth on the beam on the European Junior Championships, in 1988 he received the grasp’s Hungarian championship in 4 figures, and on the European Youth Championships he took third place on the half-bar. He was barely 14 years outdated when he already knew a component on the beam that nobody else on this planet might, it was later named after him – it’s no marvel that his expertise was additionally seen in the USA, which turned one of many nice powers of the game after the arrival of Béla Károlyi. Within the yr of the 1988 Seoul Olympics, he was the Hungarian champion all 4 instances, however he couldn’t make it to the five-hoop video games due to the age restrict.
He broke into the highest of the world on the age of 15, rising to the highest of the competitors along with his motion and radiance. On the World Championships in Stuttgart in 1989, she was fifth on beam, and in the identical yr, on the European Championships in Brussels, she received the primary gold medal of Hungarian ladies’s gymnastics on the half hurdle, received the bronze medal on the ground, and was fifth within the particular person all-around. He did not defend his title on the 1990 European Championships in Athens, however returned residence with bronze medals within the particular person all-around and flooring.
On the 1991 World Championships in Indianapolis, the soar – which was nonetheless known as horse leaping – turned her strongest efficiency, during which she received a silver medal. In line with his phrases, he labored laborious for achievement: along with college, he nearly solely went to coaching classes, each minute was allotted, and he hardly had any free time left.
He managed to appreciate his life’s nice dream on the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, when he received a gold medal in horse leaping. Within the closing, she acquired 9.925 factors for her train, the identical because the Romanian Lavinia Milosovici, who got here after her, so each of them might stand on high of the rostrum – Hungarian ladies’s gymnastics turned the Olympic champion once more after 36 years. The competitors was additionally determined between the 2 of them on the ground, the place the Romanian woman acquired the utmost ten factors, thus successful with 5 hundredths of a degree, though many believed that Henrietta Ónodi deserved the gold medal as nicely. It was solely when he acquired residence and noticed the quantity of consideration directed at him that he understood how a lot he had achieved and the way common he had turn out to be.
After the Olympics, he went to check in the USA and deliberate to complete competing, however he was once more a member of the Hungarian crew on the 1996 pentathlon video games in Atlanta and completed ninth. The next yr, he was nonetheless within the seventh crew on the Universiade, after which he retired for good, ending his profession as a 38-time Hungarian champion.
His sports activities profession was acknowledged with quite a few awards: in 1988 he was a wonderful youth athlete, from 1989 he was the very best Hungarian gymnast of the yr for 4 years in a row, in 1992 he acquired the Small Cross of the Order of Advantage of the Republic of Hungary, in 1992 the Gold Medal of the President of the Republic of Hungary, in 1995 the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Hungarian Honest Play Award. In 2008, he was elected an honorary citizen of Békéscsaba, in 2010 he was included within the membership of the immortals of the Hungarian Gymnastics Affiliation, and he was elected to the American-based corridor of fame of the immortals of gymnastics. In 2017, he acquired the title of immortal sports activities star of Békéscsaba.
Though he had deliberate to return residence after graduating and set up a coaching middle in Békéscsaba, this didn’t happen as a result of sudden demise of his father. He stayed in the USA, labored within the workplace of the World Olympic Affiliation in Miami, after which turned a coach in Minneapolis. Right now, she lives together with her husband, Olympic pentathlete and physician Jim Haley, and their three youngsters in a small city in Florida. He hasn’t misplaced contact with sports activities, he follows the occasions, usually visits Békéscsaba and writes about his experiences.
Supply: MTI
