Hungary swimming coach quits over rape conviction

BUDAPEST: The head coach of Hungary’s swimming federation MUSZ, Laszlo Kiss, resigned after it emerged this week that he served time for a gang rape conviction more than 50 years ago.

“In the interests of Hungarian sport, and keeping in mind the damage to my health due to the attacks directed at me, I have decided to resign from my duties as head coach as from today,” Kiss said in a statement on Thursday published by the MTI news agency.

The move follows revelations on Tuesday on a news website about Kiss’ jailing in 1962 for his participation aged 21 in the rape of a young woman with two other swimmers the previous year.

Kiss, a trainer since 1965 and the federation’s head coach since 2000, reportedly served just 20 months of the three-year sentence.

The 75-year-old coach went on to guide swimming great Krisztina Egerszegi to a record five Olympic gold medals between 1988 and 1996, and also helped Attila Czene and Agnes Kovacs to golds at the 1996 and 2000 Games, respectively.

Responding to the revelations, which rocked Hungary, a world power in the sport, Kiss said he had been “given another chance in life”, and had “taken it”.

He also said the 1962 verdict, made during Hungary’s four-decades-long communist era, was in a show trial and said he would fight to clear his name.

The MUSZ leadership, as well as a separate committee of coaches, both voted unanimously on Wednesday to back Kiss but pressure mounted after calls for his resignation from across society including lawyers, child psychologists and politicians.

A Hungarian sponsor had also announced on Thursday it was breaking its contract with MUSZ, local organiser of the 2017 World Swimming Championships to be held in Budapest, over the Kiss affair.

The resignation is the coach’s second within three months after a row erupted in January between MUSZ and Katinka Hosszu, Hungary’s world No. 1 female swimmer, over treatment of swimmers.

Kiss’ offer to resign was then rejected by the federation.

Kiss also resigned on Thursday from a deputy mayoral position in the town of Szazhalombatta close to Budapest which had also given him the freedom of the city, and named its swimming pool after him in 2009. — AFP