Mihály Huszka

Mihály Huszka started weightlifting in 1950, firstly as a competitor of MTK, then Tatabányai and Oroszlányi Bányász. Between 1959 and 1964 he won five individual Hungarian championship titles. In 1959-1960 he was champion at lightweight, and in 1961, 1962 and 1964 in middleweight. Between 1957 and 1965, he appeared in the Hungarian national team 24 times.

In 1959, he competed at the World Championships for the first time and finished in 10th place. At the 1960 Summer Olympic Games in Rome, he took 6th place in the lightweight category then two years later at the 1962 World Weightlifting Championships, he competed at middleweight and won a silver medal. The following year, he also won a silver medal in the middleweight category at the World Championships. He competed at two European Championships, 1962 and 1963, and won silver medals in both in the middleweight category. His last major world event was the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, where he finished 6th.

In 1965 Huszka defected and after spending two years in Austria, ended up in US in 1967, where he became a successful coach. Many of his students achieved significant results. H prepared a number of athletes for the U.S. national team. There were 6 Olympians, 15 international competitors, 34 national champions, 20 national record holders and one world record holder on the list of his students.

But Mihály Huszka did not stop with active weightlifting and from 1976 he was a regular participant in the Masters competitions. He won the US Masters Championship 76 times, was a 22-time Masters World Champion and 4-time Masters World Games winner. In this category, he broke the world record more than a hundred times.In recognition of his career, in 2000 he was awarded the title “Masters Competitor of the Century”.