Steve Raskovy

Istvan “Steve” Raskovy was born in Hungary in 1936 and left the country in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution. Raskovy spent the next 12 months in refugee camps before finding a home in Australia where he resumed his love of wrestling. From 1958 to 1968 he won nine Victorian state titles and seven national titles, in addition to earning a place on the Australian team for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Competing with a dislocated shoulder, Raskovy lost his first bout and won his second, before being eliminated from the tournament by the eventual gold medallist Jiří Kormaník.

After Raskovy retired from active competition he turned to coaching, spending the next 30 years working with youngsters across Melbourne. Alongside his coaching he also worked as a wrestling judge from 1961 until 2004, officiating matches both in Australia and internationally. In 1986 he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia (OAM) for services to wrestling in the Queen’s Birthday Honours. Outside of wrestling Raskovy was active in politics, where he ran in more than 20 elections at local, state, and federal level.