János Kulcsár

János Kulcsár started kayaking at Ganz-Mávag, then continued at Bp. Honvéd from 1949. Kulcsár won his first Hungarian championship in 1950 in the K-2 500m. As a competitor, 1952 was his most successful year, as he won three national championships with Bp. Honvéd and won the right to compete in the Helsinki Olympics, finishing seventh in the 1,000m pairs with István Granek. Kulcsár won his last championship title in 1957 with the FTC 4 X 500m relay. In the same year, he finished fourth in the K-2 10,000m and sixth in the K-4 10,000m at the European Championships in Gand.

His racing career was interrupted by illness, but he remained in the sport as a coach. When in 1959 the former GDR asked Hungary for a coach to reorganize and boost the sport and prepare the competitors for the 1960 Olympics, the association chose János Kulcsár. In fact, he was the one who laid the foundation for the later extremely successful East German kayak-canoe sport. He returned home in 1961 and revived the Bp. Honvéd kayak-canoe section in 1962.