As a fencer with Bp. Haladás and later Bp. Honvéd, József Gyuricza took part in three Olympics. He finished third in the team foil and equal fifth in the individual at Melbourne in 1956, while four years later in Rome he was fourth in the team competition, and then seventh at Tokyo in 1964. Gyuricza won ten World Championship medals, including two golds, and in 1955 was Hungary’s first individual world foil champion.
A sports medical examination in 1966 found a patch on Gyuricza’s right lung, which was diagnosed as lung cancer and he underwent surgery. After the operation, with only half a lung, he fought for the silver-medal winning team at the World Championships in Moscow that year, before retiring from competition. In 1968, he graduated as a teacher of Physical Education at TF (College of Physical Education). Gyuricza became a fencing specialist in 1970, then a fencing master and, from 1977, he was a master coach working for BHSE, BVSC and OSC. His pupils included the three-time world champion and Olympic silver medallist Ildikó Farkasinszky-Bóbis, as well as and Olympic runner-up, Magda Maros. In the mid-1990s, Gyuricza became restricted in movement when he was paralysed down one side due to a vasospasm, and in 2020 he had an accident in his flat and was hospitalized, but his life unfortunately could not be saved, and he died a few days later.
Hungary