Matyas Szabo

Matyas Szabo (* August 19, 1991 in Brașov, Romania) is a German sabre fencer. He is an Olympian, a world champion, and two-time European champion.

Sporting successes

Matyas Szabo won historic gold with Benedikt Wagner, Nicolas Limbach, and Max Hartung at the 2014 World Fencing Championships in Kazan. Never before had a German team managed to win the world title. Surprisingly, the team beat Korea in the final.

In front of an enthusiastic home audience, Szabo also won the European Championship title with the team in Düsseldorf 2019. After his participation at the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro 2016, he has good chances to compete at the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2021. The team qualified at the last World Cup in Luxembourg.

His successful career was already evident in his youth. In 2008 he reached the second place at the European Cadet Championships in Rovigo. In 2010 he won the Junior World Championships in Baku with the team, and in 2011 he won the gold medal at the Junior World Championships at the Dead Sea, both individually and with the team. His breakthrough into the absolute world top in the adult world came in 2013 when he won the World Cup in Chicago in the individual.

Demaskiert Podcast

With his team mate Max Hartung, Szabo runs the largest German-language fencing podcast. On their way to the Olympic Games in Tokyo 2020, they recorded over 40 episodes and let the audience take a look behind the mask. During the lockdown, the pair also recorded training videos for children who had no access to their gymnasiums and posted them on YouTube. They were awarded for this project by Beyond Crisis and Germany Land of Ideas.

Family

Szabo is the eldest son of Vilmos Szabó, bronze medallist at the 1984 Summer Olympics in men's team sabre, and Réka Zsófia Lázár, bronze medallist at the 1992 Summer Olympics and silver medallist at the 1996 Summer Olympics in women's team foil, both from Brașov and members of the Hungarian minority in Romania. When he was two years old, his parents moved to Germany and became fencing coaches at TSV Bayer Dormagen.

Szabo began fencing at the age of four because his parent's occupation had him practically live on the piste.[1] He chose sabre, his father's weapon, because the only foilists at TSV Dormagen were girls.[1]

German Armed Forces

Szabo is a sports soldier (rank corporal) in the sports promotion group of the German Armed Forces in Cologne.

Important sporting successes

Olympic Games
  • 8th place individual competition Summer Olympic Games Rio de Janeiro 2016

World Championships
  • 1st place team competition Kazan 2014
  • 3rd place team competition Moscow 2015
  • 4th place team competition Budapest 2019

European Championships
  • 1st place team competition Montreux 2015
  • 1st place team competition Düsseldorf 2019

Junior World Championship
  • 1st place individual competition Tashkent 2011
  • 1st place team competition Tashkent 2011
  • 1st place team competition Baku 2010

References
  1. Oana Duşmănescu (1 April 2011). "Băiatul de aur: Matyas, fiul Rekăi Szabo, cîştigă medalii mondiale pentru Germania". Gazeta Sporturilor (in Romanian).
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