Kornél Pajor, Hungarian speed skater, Died at 92

  Sports

Kornél Pajor was born on July 1, 1923, and on May 18, 2016.

He was a speed skating World Champion from Hungary.

Pajor was born in Budapest.

During early 1943, he was a young and promising skater of 19 years old, but because World War II was in progress there were not many competitions.

During his time at Klagenfurt, Austria, at one of the few skating competitions that year, he won the 3000 m.

Then following that the war, skating competitions slowly returned to normal, and Pajor participated in the 1948 Winter Olympics of St. Moritz, with a fourth place on the 10000 m as his best result.

The next year, 1949, was his best year: He became Hungarian National Allround Champion for the fourth time and then won bronze at the European Allround Championships, while setting a new world record on the 5000 m during those championships.

During the 10000 m in the championships, Pajor skated a time of 16:58.7, which was faster than Charles Mathiesen’s nine-year-old world record of 17:01.5 on that distance.

However, Hjalmar Andersen became the new world record holder on the 10000 m, skating an even faster 16:57.4.

Later after Two weeks, at the 1949 World Allround Championships in Oslo, Norway, Pajor won gold, which made him the first Hungarian skater to become World Allround Champion.

As of 2007, he was still the only Hungarian, male or female, to win gold, or even any medal, at any of the different disciplines of World Championships in speed skating (Emese Hunyady of course having been naturalised to the Austrian nationality (1985) when she became World Champion (1994 Allround; 1999 1500m)

Following the 1949 World Championships, Pajor did not return home from Oslo, defecting from Hungary.

When Pajor took part in the 1951 World Allround Championships and won a bronze medal, he did not represent any country.

However, the International Skating Union (ISU) allowed him to take part as an “independent skater” representing the ISU.

During 1952, skating for IF Castor (Idrottsföreningen Castor – Sport Federation Castor) of Östersund, Sweden.

Pajor won bronze at the European Allround Championships held in his new hometown of Östersund, representing Sweden.

Whilst in Sweden, he worked as an architect and had his own architect firm in Djursholm.

Kornél Pajor passed away at 92 yrs old.