Gyula Bóbis

Gyula Bóbis started his sports career as a football player of Kecskeméti TE, then switched to wrestling due to the influence of his older brother. Coming to Budapest in 1932 he first competed in the colors of BVSC. In 1939 he moved to MAC, and in 1945 back to BVSC. He started as a flyweight and achieved his greatest successes as a light-heavyweight and heavyweight. He competed both in freestyle and Greco-Roman. Between 1934 and 1950 he won 23 individual and five team champion titles.

Between 1936 and 1950 he wrestled for the Hungarian national team thirty-one times. In 1936, he took part in the Berlin Olympics, where he was eliminated after two defeats and finished unplaced in heavyweight in Greco-Roman. He achieved his greatest success at the 1948 London Olympics, where he won the gold medal out of nine competitors in freestyle heavyweight. He took third place twice at the European Championships (in 1937 in München freestyle, heavyweight and in 1939 in Oslo in Greco-Roman style, heavyweight). In 1950, at the world championship in Stockholm in the Greco-Roman, Bóbis won the silver medal in the heavyweight. After a serious eye injury, however, he retired in 1951.

After his retirement, he worked as a MÁV (Hungarian Railway) official. In 1971 he received the Order of Merit of the International Wrestling Federation (FILA). Bóbis read a lot and studied French and Greek to write the ancient history of wrestling. He loved chess and music, played the piano, and sang opera arias. A square and a training hall in Kecskemét were named after him. Of his five children, Ildikó achieved the greatest sporting success, becoming the world champion and an Olympic silver medalist in fencing.